Baked Purple Sweet Potatoes!

As I was in the store this evening, buying our usual produce for the week, I was also on the lookout for interesting new veggies that I have not tried so far. Just by accident, I noticed Purple Sweet Potatoes on one of the stands. Instantly, New Veggie # 57 was in my cart. Since I wanted to taste the flavors in as natural a form as possible, I opted to bake my potato tonight. 

The Stokes sticker on the potato asked for it to be baked for 1.5-2 hours at 350F. I sure didn't have the patience for that to take place. So I simply scrubbed the skin with a vegetable brush, wrapped the still damp tuber in saran wrap and microwaved it on high for 5 min + 2 min, with a quick check in between to check if it was done. The only disadvantage of nuking a potato or sweet potato in my opinion is that it dries up a tad more compared to when it is oven-baked. When I do have the time, I do try to bake the conventional way, in an oven or in a roaster. 

My Assessment: Despite the unusual color, I thought that these purple tubers tasted a lot like regular orange sweet potatoes. If I ate them with my eyes closed, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference. I simple had mine with salt and pepper. Yum!

Veggie Fact of the Day

Purple Sweet potatoes are the edible tubers of the sweet potato plants. Compared to their orange counterparts, purple sweet potatoes are much higher in vitamin A than other varieties of sweet potatoes. Each cup of purple sweet potatoes contains only about  114 calories, with 2 g protein, 27 g carbohydrates and no fat or cholesterol. Each cup of purple sweet potatoes provides almost 375% of the RDA for Vitamin A. 

Stokes is probably the biggest local (US) supplier of purple sweet potatoes. Along with the high Vitamin A content, purple sweet potatoes are loaded with anthocyanins, which cause the rich purple color, and other polyphenolic compounds which have antioxidant properties. Purple sweet potatoes are also diabetic friendly, with a lower glycemic index than white potatoes.