Mashed Sweet Potatoes

I love homemade mashed potatoes.  The chunkier they are, the better because then you know they came from real potatoes.  I watched a Pioneer Woman episode where she made mashed potatoes though, and I almost had a heart attack at how many horrible things she put in hers: tons of butter, cream cheese, and half and half.

I started thinking about sweet potatoes and was wondering if they could have the same comforting quality without two sticks of butter and a package of cream cheese.  I found a great base recipe on Allrecipes and decided to play with them from there.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes
adapted from Allrecipes
Ingredients
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/4 cup skim milk

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon brown sugar

Directions
1) Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender, 20 to 30 minutes.               

2) With a potato masher, mash potatoes, slowly adding milk. Add butter, maple syrup, cinnamon, and brown sugar to taste.  Mash until smooth. Serve warm.               

I loved these potatoes.  You could still taste the sweet potatoes, but they were enhanced mostly by the maple syrup.  I think these would be a great substitution for mashed potatoes at Thankgiving.  They still have the hearty flavor, but taste like their ingredients, not like butter and cream cheese.  We served this with turkey filet mignions wrapped in turkey bacon to make an every night dinner and it was a fantastic meal.