What is your favorite recipe using yams at Thanksgiving?

Mashed yams with pomegranate juice.

I like them ‘candied’ with brown sugar and butter and then put marshmallows on top and brown under the broiler.

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

3 large sweet potatoes (equiv. of approx. 3 lbs.)
1/4 cup very soft butter
1/3 to 1/2 cup brown or dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Bake or microwave sweet potatoes til soft. Chill. Then peel and cut up
potatoes in large mixing bowl. Add other ingredients and beat with
mixer til well whipped. Adjust the sugar to your own taste. Spoon into
buttered casserole dish.
(May refrigerate over night) Bake 300 degrees, covered for 30 min,
then uncovered for 15 min, or until hot all through.
For looks you can sprinkle with cinnamon sugar when you uncover them.

My favorite is coal-roasted sweet potatoes cooked directly on hardwood charcoal embers, served with butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. The outside burns black and the inside gets fluffy and almost caramelized from the high, direct heat. But for sheer outrageousness, there’s….

Soul-food Sweet Potatoes
(from the Frugal Gourmet)

- Peel and slice sweet potatoes into 1/4” rounds
– Stack in a soup pot or lidded casserole
– pour 1/4 cup water in the bottom
– pour one pound of sugar on top (yes, a pound)
– place one stick of butter on top of the pile
– cover pot
– turn heat on low and simmer one hour

One person’s yam is another person’s sweet potato

I wonder if there are regional preferences? I know the coloring of yams and sweet potatoes are a little different, but I can never keep straight which is which.

Technically, yams are primarily found in Africa and not available in the US – both what they call “yams” and “sweet potatoes” here are both sweet potatoes.

Candied Sweet Potatoes. One of those things I don’t even need a recipe for. Boil your sweet potatoes till almost done. Peel them, and cut up not too small or it will melt away, place in a buttered casserole. ( real butter here folks) Mix equal parts brown sugar, and water in a sauce pan, simmer till sugar is melted. Sprinkle sweet potatoes with cinnamon, ginger, and a touch of cayenne pepper. Pour the syrup over and bake in a 350 oven for 30 minutes. If you want you can always throw some marshmallows on at the end and brown.

@Alfreda: In the grocery yesterday the box the stocker was unloading read Sweet Potatoes/Yams on the side. The produce manager told me there is a very distinct difference but here in the US, most people think they are the same so they are marketed as such. Go figure, I guess ignorance is bliss in this case.

There are different varities of sweet potatoes in the US – red, gold, brown – but they’re all technically “sweet potatoes,” even the ones we call “yams.” Mr. Produce Manager needs a little schooling!

We’ve made this in our family for forever.

Sweet Potato Casserole:

Ingredients: 2 cans of yams, 3 eggs, 3/4 cup flour, tsp baking powder, 1 cup raisins, 1 cup chopped pecans, 1 can crushed pineapples, 1/2 stick of butter, 3/4 cup brown sugar, cinnamon to taste (2 tsp), topping
Tools: casserole dish of some sort, masher or mixer of some sort

Preheat oven to 350 or 375 (whichever you have to cook other stuff at)
a. Mash the yams (or buy them that way).
b. Stir in the eggs, flour, baking powder, raisins, pecans, pineapples, sugar, and cinnamon.
c. Melt the butter and stir it in.
d. Grease (I like to use Pam) the casserole dish and dump everything in.
e. Top with topping (1/4 cup of butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1 tsp cinnamon mixed together until resembles coarse meal)
f. Stick in over until done. You’ll know. Think about 40 minutes. Maybe up to an hour, maybe longer. Seriously, you’ll know.

I give up! (and honestly, I could also care less) :)
http://homecooking.about.com/od/howtocookvegetables/a/sweetpotatodiff.htm

@bythebay Here in the US we only have sweet potatoes. Yams are an African tuber and not allowed into the US. So we call the red/orange sweet potatoes yams and the white sweet potatoes.

All I know is that I want to see the 7 foot yam they refer to in that article.

What I really miss is the Okinwan purple sweet potatoes that we have in Hawaii. It’s not allowed on the main land since it usually contains a parasite that could be devastating to the potato harvest here. By here I really mean HERE! I live only a block away from the nearest potato field.

By “usually contain” you mean “in the potatoes we didn’t actually eat, but they are quite common”... RIGHT?

Yes, when you dig them up you may find some “holes” that you trim off and just cook the potato. Well when I moved to the mainland I found out I couldn’t get these, and that was the reason given to me by the man doing the agriculture check at the Honolulu Airport.

I “do my own thing” and I don’t really have a recipie to share, because it varies depending on my whims when I make it, but it is a candied version which involves brown sugar, pecans, and a crunchy crumbly topping (kind of like a coffee cake topping) made with butter, a little flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and oatmeal.

The first time I made it, I was surprised by how well recieved it was. Even people who don’t like sweet potatoes love it…yay!!