I’ll admit that I am a sucker for anything sweet potato. In preparation for a gluten-free Thanksgiving cooking class I was teaching, I decided to break out of my usual habit of making one of my favorite sweet potato casseroles in order to create something more colorful, more fresh, more crunchy, more crisp, more the total embodiment of autumn…this might not be all that, but it got my juices flowing, and my class loved the new twist on this old favorite!

Ingredients:
2 lbs. (approximately 3 medium) sweet potatoes
½ cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons water
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup toasted walnuts or pecans
¼ cup dried cranberries, raisins or cherries
1 – 2 chopped, not peeled apples (baking apples like Gala, Fuji or Red Delicious, not tart apples)

Directions:
Wash the sweet potatoes and add to a pot with enough salted water to cover the potatoes when they boil. Add the potatoes to the hot water and cover, letting them boil until tender, or about 30 – 35 minutes. (Another option is to pierce the potatoes with a fork and bake in microwave until tender). Let cool, then slip off the skins. Cut into small chunks.

Mix brown sugar, butter, water and salt in an 8-inch skillet. Cover over medium heat while stirring until bubbly. Add the sweet potato chunks and stir until glazed. Stir in the nuts, berries and chopped apples until well mixed.

Serve warm.
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