{"id":64906,"date":"2009-12-04T16:25:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T21:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blog.cookingwithtraderjoes.com,2009-12-04:69f01812-c91e-418f-8916-e6e1e323f061"},"modified":"2009-12-04T16:25:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-04T21:25:00","slug":"sweet-potatoes-with-balsamic-maple-glaze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/64906","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Potatoes with Balsamic Maple Glaze"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 400px; height: 267px;\" src=\"http:\/\/images.quickblogcast.com\/2\/4\/6\/4\/2\/133294-124642\/SweetPotatoesGlazed.jpg?a=0\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\"><\/p>\n<div> <\/div>\n<p>Roasting sweet potatoes and adding a flavorful Balsamic maple glaze is a great way to enjoy this highly nutritious root vegetable.&nbsp; They&#8217;re so tasty, so easy to cook, and I haven&#8217;t met a kid yet that doesn&#8217;t love sweet potatoes.&nbsp; <strong><\/p>\n<p><\/strong>And I wasn&#8217;t kidding about sweet potatoes being nutritious &#8211; they actually rank #1 as determined by nutritionists at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.&nbsp; They earned the honor by being full of dietary fiber, natural sugars, vitamin C, beta carotene, and Vitamin A.&nbsp; Trader Joe&#8217;s makes it easy to enjoy these because they carry bags of conveniently peeled and cubed sweet potatoes.&nbsp; TJ&#8217;s also carries bags of sweet potato spears with are just perfect for making oven-roasted <a  href=\"http:\/\/blog.cookingwithtraderjoes.com\/2008\/09\/03\/forget-about-french-fries--try-baked-sweet-potato-fries-instead.aspx\">sweet potato fries<\/a>.&nbsp; My kids love those and so do I.<br \/><strong><br \/><\/strong>When I do a sweet potato recipe, someone usually asks me &#8220;what&#8217;s the difference between a sweet potato and a yam?&#8221;&nbsp; Well, it seems that what we interchangeably call a yam or sweet potato is really a sweet potato.&nbsp;&nbsp; It&#8217;s a misnomer to call them yams &#8211; yams are an unrelated tuber that comes in all shapes and colors and doesn&#8217;t grow in the US.&nbsp; 95% of yams are grown in Africa and are more starchy and dry than a sweet potato.&nbsp; Some yams apparently can grow to 6 feet tall.&nbsp; You certainly can find yams here in international markets, but what you&#8217;re commonly used to eating is a sweet potato.&nbsp;&nbsp; The Department of Agriculture now requires that anything (incorrectly) labeled a yam to also be labeled as a sweet potato.&nbsp;  If you want to delve into the heated yam vs. sweet potato controversy, you can see photos and a comparison chart <a  href=\"http:\/\/www.ncsweetpotatoes.com\/nutrition\/sweet-potato-vs-yam.html\">here<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And of course, none of them are even <em>potatoes<\/em>, but we won&#8217;t go there&#8230;!&nbsp; <br \/><strong><br \/>Sweet Potatoes with Balsamic Maple Glaze<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1 2-lb bag Cut Sweet Potatoes (or cut your own into 3\/4-1 inch cubes)<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.quickblogcast.com\/2\/4\/6\/4\/2\/133294-124642\/SweetPotatoes.JPG?a=43\" align=\"right\" height=\"234\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" width=\"155\"><\/p>\n<div> <\/div>\n<p>5 Tbsp peeled and minced shallots (~3 shallots)<br \/>3 Tbsp vegetable oil, divided<br \/>3 Tbsp maple syrup, divided<br \/>2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar<br \/>1\/4 tsp each salt and pepper<\/p>\n<p>1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.<br \/>2.) In a medium bowl, toss the sweet potatoes with 2 Tbsp oil and 2 Tbsp maple syrup until well coated.&nbsp; Spread the sweet potatoes on a lightly oiled baking sheet.&nbsp; Make sure they are spread out well so that they roast evenly.<br \/>3.) Roast sweet potatoes in oven for 20-25 minutes, giving a toss halfway through.&nbsp; Roast till fork-tender.<br \/>4.) While sweet potatoes are in the oven, saute the shallots in a small saucepan with 1 Tbsp oil until shallots are soft.&nbsp; Add Balsamic vinegar and the remaining 1 Tbsp maple syrup.&nbsp; Simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes until sauce is slightly reduced and thickened.&nbsp; Remove from heat.<br \/>5.) Remove sweet potatoes from oven and transfer to medium serving bowl.&nbsp; Drizzle with the sauce and toss to coat.<\/p>\n<p><em>Serves 4-6<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roasting sweet potatoes and adding a flavorful Balsamic maple glaze is a great way to enjoy this highly nutritious root vegetable.&nbsp; They&#8217;re so tasty, so easy to cook, and I haven&#8217;t met a kid yet that doesn&#8217;t love sweet potatoes.&nbsp; And I wasn&#8217;t kidding about sweet potatoes being nutritious &#8211; they actually rank #1 as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}