Project Description
I didn’t think about sweet potato production until I moved to the Delmarva, a peninsula on the East Coast of the United States that comprises the Eastern Shores of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. When the fall season approaches, signs go up advertising sweet potatoes for sale at roadside stands and directly from farmers. All summer, the vines for these tubers have been growing unbeknownst, and most likely, unobserved in the surrounding fields.
Seeking Delmarva-grown sweet potatoes, one year I drove all the way down the peninsula to Machipongo, VA to Quail Cove Farm, where they grow Hammons, a white flesh and creamy-colored skin sweet potato that has a long history on the Eastern Shore.
In Spring 2022, actually early summer, I planted some sweet potato “slips.” Unfortunately, due to the lack of adequate sun, I got enough sweet potatoes for about one meal. Thus, I turned to foraging and was able to find Hammons and Beauregards, a red-copper tuber with deep orange flesh, that had been grown just on the outskirts of Salisbury, Maryland.
I got this recipe a couple years ago and usually make it with orange sweet potatoes, but love to use purple sweet potatoes around the holiday, and they are a real hit. Enjoy!
Look at the great color of these biscuits when made with Frieda’s purple sweet potatoes.
2 cups cooked sweet potatoes, ideally hot (try purple, they’re a hoot)
½ cup butter (melted, if the potatoes are cold)
3 Tbsp. sugar
½ cup whole milk
2 cups flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
Add wet to dry ingredients and lightly mix. On a floured surface, roll dough ½-inch thick
Transfer to baking sheet; bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes.
Do you have a sweet potato biscuit recipe to share? Contact me.