Monday, December 06, 2010

Just an Excuse for Sour Cream

It wasn't until I was a grown-up that I learned you could simply bake a sweet potato, open it up, add butter and salt, and devour.
I'd always been led to believe sweet potatoes had marshmallows and vanilla and other abominations, and no, thanks.
Cranky's mom, the frugal Yankee, taught me the plain, baked way.
And today I figured, "Let's pile that whole Russet baggage on this thing." Why not?
The sweet potato was so, so huge we could each only eat one quarter. (Leftovers!)
It was buttered and salted, then drenched with sour cream and sprinkled with chives. Only bacon bits were missing, and I think they might have been really good, too.

15 comments:

Zoomie said...

I love that photo! It looks like salmon under there - sockeye.

cookiecrumb said...

Zoomie: This tater was shockingly red-orange. I thought it looked like salmon too.
(Next question. Would you eat salmon with butter, sour cream and chives? Bacon? I would.)

Kailyn said...

So many thoughts. First, it was a sweet potato? Because I usually buy yams since they are darker in color than sweet potatoes. Oh, and none of the strings. I just started doing the baked thing in the last five years. Salt? Is that because you use unsalted butter? Because I skip the salt since I use salted butter in potatoes. And I'm going to have to try the sour cream since I frequently eat things based on my ability to add dairy to them. Finally I know bacon would completely work since I often use this as a side for pork dishes. Oops. Not final thought. Have kabocha stuck in the head thanks to Zoomie. Sour cream on kabocha! Or maybe creme fraiche.

Ms Brown Mouse said...

Righto, planning a stopover at the grocer on the way home tomorrow (I'm totally having the bacon bits too).
(Put me down for the salmon w butter, sour cream, chives & bacon, oooo yeah)

Zoomie said...

Oh, yeah, baby - salmon with those flavors sounds like decadent heaven, undoing all the good that the salmon does for the body in one fell swoop.

Anonymous said...

Mmmm... I love a good sweet potato. I've always topped them with sweet and not savory. Gonna have to try this (with the bacon, of course).

cookiecrumb said...

Kailyn: Apologies for the pedantry, but I've learned that true yams are not grown in this country. Sure, everybody uses the term, and so what? This "yam" was definitely the dark kind. Just a different variety of sweet potato.
Oh, and we don't use salted butter. Just don't buy it.
Sour cream on kabocha is to die. For.

Mouse: You're going to give it a try? Flattered. The salmon, too. And the bacon. Eee. We've invented, and crowd-sourced, a recipe here. Yippee.

Zoomie: Everything in moderation! :)

Zia: Of COURSE the bacon.

Kailyn said...

Thanks for the lesson. I did think they looked pretty similar aside from color. And I actually by both kinds of butter. Some baking recipes call specifically for salted butter while others call for unsalted.

Nancy Ewart said...

You need an excuse for using sour cream? No excuses necessary!

cookiecrumb said...

Kailyn: Well, you know how much I bake! Not.

Nancy: Hellz no! I eat it out of the container. You have a favorite? We just re-found a taste-winner that probably isn't local, but it's gooood.

Greg said...

Sweet potatoes and sour cream. Comfortable.

Hungry Dog said...

Nice. ALthough, how can you only eat a quarter of a potato?

cookiecrumb said...

Greg: You are a great writer, you know that?

Dog: Sounds absurd, I know. But this thing was football-sized!

Denise | Chez Danisse said...

I love a simple baked sweet potato, but have not tried sour cream on top. Nice idea. Thanks.

cookiecrumb said...

Denise: I was afraid I'd gone nuts on this thing, but it turned out Really Edible. I hope you like it.