Sweet Potato Latkes

Mr. FoodWhore and I love sweet potatoes. Our favorite side dish is sweet potato chips from the grill.  But this time around, we were looking for something a little different. I had a couple of huge sweet potatoes, and Mr. FoodWhore suggested doing something like hash browns with them.  I was pretty shocked, considering Mr. FoodWhore doesn't really get into the whole creative side of cooking too often. So I headed online to see if anyone else had attempted such a thing.  I found a great recipe for Sweet Potato Latkes on All-Recipes. I modified it a bit. Here's my version:

Ingredients

2 sweet potatoes (medium sized)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

2 tsp ground cloves

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp crushed red pepper
1/4 cup vegetable oil for frying

Directions
1. In a food processor or with a grater (I highly recommend the processor), shred the potatoes.

2. Place sweet potatoes in a colander to drain the excess liquid. Place a cheesecloth (paper towel will work fine too) over the potatoes, and squeeze the potatoes to release as much liquid as possible. Let the potatoes sit for a few minutes, then squeeze them again.

3.  In a large bowl, combine sweet potatoes, eggs, brown sugar, flour, cloves, cinnamon and red pepper.  Mix well.

4.  In a large skillet, heat oil to medium high.

5.  Form mixture into pancake size cakes and fry in hot oil. Fry for 4-5 minutes (or until browned) and flip to cook the other side. 

Note: make sure the oil is hot enough. Our first batch took much longer to cook because I don't think I'd heated it enough to begin with.

6. Line a plate with paper towels and place cooked latkes on them to soak off excess oil.  And enjoy!

Serving Suggestion: These can be served with just about anything. We topped them with low-fat sour cream and served them with omelettes.

Makes around 8 medium sized latkes; 70 calories each.

Note: these are best served fresh out of the pan.  If you aren't going to serve/eat all of them at once, the sweet potato mix will stay in the fridge for a about a week. You may need to drain excess liquid if you do this, though.

Bon Appetit!
The FoodWhore