The Saturday after the hurricane, we got double our normal amount of vegetables from our CSA. That’s a LOT of vegetables. And we were leaving town Thursday. So I needed to try to use it all ASAP. I thought sweet potato biscuits would be a good use of our sweet potatoes and a good vehicle for the peach butter.

They would also be great with honey. Or just butter. Just be warned that they aren’t sweet, like some sweet potato baked goods.

I baked my sweet potatoes to get them soft, then scraped the potato flesh out of the skin. But that took forever. Next time I will definitely peel the potatoes, chop them into pieces and boil them for about 20 minutes to get them the right consistency. You could also use leftover cooked sweet potatoes, if you have some.

I didn’t bake my potatoes quite as long as I should have, hence the chunks of sweet potato in the batter. If you want a smoother batter, make sure you cook the sweet potatoes until they are really soft.

You can certainly roll this batter out if you’d like, but I thought it was easier to just pat it down with my hands. Plus, that way I didn’t have to wash my rolling pin. You can use a glass or a clean can to cut the biscuits out if you don’t have biscuit cutters.

These aren’t the best biscuits in the history of the world, but they are good. And they have a vegetable in them! Try not to eat them all yourself.

Sweet potato biscuits (Adapted from Southern Living, makes about a dozen)
1 pound sweet potatoes (you’ll need enough for a cup mashed)
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
3/4 cup to 1 cup buttermilk

Bake sweet potatoes in a 350-degree oven for 1 hour or until tender. Allow to cool slightly, then scrape out flesh and mash with a fork. OR Peel sweet potatoes and cut into large pieces (3-4 pieces per potato – try to make them roughly the same size). Place in a pot of boiling water and boil until a fork is easily inserted in the middle of the biggest piece, about 15 minutes. Drain potato chunks and then mash with a fork.

Preheat oven to 425. In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Cut butter into pieces and then cut it into the flour mixture using a pastry blender (or your hands, as long as your hands aren’t too warm*) until mixture looks crumbly.

Stir 3/4 cup buttermilk into the sweet potatoes, then add that mixture to the flour mixture. Stir just until the dough is moistened — add a little more buttermilk if you have a lot of dry flour left, but don’t add so much that the dough is sticky and wet.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times, until it comes together in a ball. Pat (or roll) out to about 1/2-inch thickness and cut into 3-inch circles using a biscuit cutter, glass or clean can.

Place biscuits on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet and bake until biscuits are golden, 10 to 15 minutes.

*If your hands are warm, try washing or rinsing them with cold water (and then drying them) right before you start combining the butter and flour.