Disclaimer: Fall is my all time favorite season. Chapel Hill is truly stunning this time of year- it just doesn’t get better than bright clear blue skies above you and every color imaginable in the trees around you. We have so many trees here it’s like an explosion of color when they change. Right now it’s still mostly greens but I’m seeing some yellows and getting excited!
Anywayyys, my flat mate is a pretty big fan of fall and all its accompanying benefits, like fall flavored food! The pumpkin spice latte is back at Starbucks and now at every other place that serves coffee. I have discovered the caramel apple spice drink at Starbucks which, for the record, is apple pie in a cup. We have a large tin of pumpkin spice tea in our apartment. A couple of weeks ago we had a large amount of pumpkin bread in the apartment. I’d been looking up recipes for other fall themed food, and it was all either desserts involving pumpkin or large dinners.
Well, yesterday I was having my daily struggle to NOT go buy biscuits for breakfast, when my flat mate suggested I eat the sweet potato I’ve done nothing with for 3 weeks for breakfast. I gave her a look saying “sweet potato for breakfast…what…” but I let her explain because she definitely knows more about cooking then I do. She went on to say if I just mashed up the sweet potato, spread butter and sprinkled brown sugar/cinnamon it would be really good and a perfect brunch dish since it was about 11 am. It was REALLY good.
My only issue is that it requires using a proper knife. Which clearly I can’t handle that early in the morning because I managed to slice my finger cooking breakfast. I think midterms drain my ability to do anything other than school work.
Nevertheless, without further ado, my fall flavored breakfast.
Ingredients:
1 sweet potato
Small amount of butter
Sprinkling of brown sugar and whatever flavor you want
(I actually used apple spice which had cinnamon in it so I didn’t add more but you can use whatever flavor your heart desires)
Instructions:
Pro tip 1: Check what side of the knife you’re holding. Don’t press down if your finger is on the sharp side of the blade.
1. Cut the sweet potato up. Or not actually. It probably cooks and mashes quicker if you cut it up into chunks but I gave up cutting the potato when I couldn’t even cut the whole way around, so I microwaved that baby whole and it was just fine.
2. Microwave for 5 minutes on high. (Really just until it’s soft enough to mash)
3. Mash.
4. Throw into a bowl, add your butter, sugar, spices or whatever you want, toss, and enjoy!
I’ll admit I was a little skeptical about having it for breakfast, and I think I’d still prefer my oatmeal with a sprinkle of brown sugar if I wanted something sweet, but if you’re craving something fall flavored, try this out for any meal or snack and let me know how it goes! I’m curious as to what other flavors people put in.
