Cake can be filling (ha ha HA).

Or filler. I’m so funny.

Just a tease:

Sweet potato revelation.

Everybody has the vegetable they loathed as a child, and probably don’t even like now. There’s the infamous Brussels sprout, the terrible broccoli (or cauliflower, in some cases), the despicable beet. I was apparently the golden child of my generation – I ate carrots straight from the soil and beans picked just off the vine. But I had a few that I wouldn’t eat. Lima beans, a favorite of Mom’s. Tomatoes, though ketchup was okay*. Okra in any form.

And sweet potatoes.

I don’t know why ’sweet potatoes.’ One would think it would be a no-contest children’s food – mashed, cubed, easily flavored, often sweet. What more could you want? It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t eat them. Maybe it was the presentation first – the only way I ever saw sweet potato was in casserole or soufflé, topped with marshmallows and browned black on top, rough-textured and cloyingly sweet. I was not a fan, and in fact, am still not a fan of that particular dish. As I got older, I still shunned them in whatever form, whatever color, however prepared. No sweet potatoes, or yams, or anything. No thank you.

Now that I am older still, I’m a little more adventurous. I heard about all the health benefits of sweet potatoes, saw the lovely colors and decided… well, they’re cheap for right now, why not? I took some home and promptly forgot about them. Good thing tubers stay acceptable in the dark and cool of my pantry.

I was hungry right then, so I decided baked sweet potatoes were right out. I didn’t have time to wait an hour or somesuch for baked potatoes. I peeled and cubed them roughly instead, planning on a mashed sweet potato something. I threw my cubes in a pot of boiling water and let them starch themselves out while I put breaded pork chops in the oven and prepared asparagus spears for roasting.