I’ve never had much luck with growing sweet potatoes but every spring, hope springs eternal! I was so excited to get my hands on some not-so-readily-available Murasaki slips and a new elevated self-watering planter so I wouldn’t have to dig up my big purple potatoes on my hands and knees. I grabbed a new large bag of soil with compost and planted those slips after all danger of frost had passed. I made sure to keep up on my watering and sometimes even added soluble fertilizer. What a conscientious gardener I was! And what beautiful foliage grew from those slips! I thought for certain that some large, luscious tubers lay below the surface.

Well, I was wrong. Again. Those of you who have grown sweet potatoes successfully saw this coming, didn’t you? You saw it from the moment I mentioned “new soil with compost”. And the words “beautiful foliage,” were a dead giveaway. You may have found that they produce well in poor soil, not in compost-happy soil and certainly not in over-fertilized soil. Lesson learned. See if you can detect the difference between my two homegrown Murasakis and the two I picked up at Trader Joe’s. 

Defeat is not such a bitter pill to swallow, especially when dealing with compostable goods, but I was too emotionally attached to let those skinny little potatoes fade away. I cured them properly and stored them in a cool, dry place. And then Thanksgiving rolled around and brought my mother-in-law, Carolyn, along. 

Carolyn grew up in farm country and loves her sweet potatoes sweet, with butter and marshmallows. I had unfortunately neglected to pick up any canned candied yams before the stores closed and had to call those Murasakis up from the bullpen. Or rather, the basement. 

I simply washed and scrubbed them well, poked them with a fork, placed them on a cookie sheet and roasted them with the skins on in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes. The cooking time was reduced from an hour for normal-sized sweet potatoes, but even a half hour was too long. My potatoes came out too soft and small to even think about peeling, so I chopped them crosswise, poured a little melted butter on them, and into a serving dish they went. 

Our Thanksgiving dinner was lovely and when it came time to send guests home with leftovers, we asked Carolyn what she wanted. “Oh, I’ll have some smoked turkey and mashed potatoes and some of Anita’s homemade buns,” she said. “And I’d like some of those little chocolates for dessert, too.” With their deep purple color and natural sweetness (and a little assist from the melted butter), my mother-in-law had mistaken the Murasaki sweet potatoes for chocolate pieces. We drove her home happy and well-fed.