Not Your Grandma's Mashed Potatoes

This was literally the thought process for dinner tonight:

"What could I possibly make that would deserve a big dollop of this butter?"

Panama is many, many things, but it is not the best butter producer. In fact, most of the stuff they pass off as butter in the grocery store is overpriced rather disgusting crap. There is one brand that comes from Wisconsin; the rest I do not recommend.

I'm not really a butter eater, but when I found myself staring a plastic sort of Dixie Cup thing full of butter, made about an hour away on the Pacific coast by a couple who also make Gouda cheese, I couldn't help myself. $11-something a pound? Heck yes it's worth it. Hand it over. (At one point I lived on a mountain top in the Alps and our neighbor was a woman on an Ohm whose cows enjoyed their summer pastures while we enjoyed their butter, milk and buttermilk. I would have gladly paid for that stuff, too.)

Only yesterday I finally got all the ingredients together for my favorite butter carrier: sea salt, brewer's yeast, butter, of course, and popcorn. Before that, though, I'd managed to douse a bunch of vegetables in a sage butter sauce that I learned to make as part of a butternut squash ravioli recipe that I got from Visconti's in Leavenworth when I compiled Savoring Leavenworth. (Also a really great use of good, high quality butter.)

Today, however, I was casting about for ideas. It wasn't that cold, but I wanted some comfort -- and for those of you who don't know, I for some reason take a lot of comfort in sweet potatoes. I happened to have some -- or the version of the sweet potato they have available here, anyway, which is a little different. Candice and Curt sell them: Cuban sweet potatoes, or camote as they refer to them here. They're sweet, white-fleshed, organic, monstrously strange shaped beasts that are starchier than U.S. grocery store fare, and fricking delicious.

So I boiled them. As they boiled, I carmelized some onions and garlic and toasted some walnuts. (The key to making nuts delicious, I have decided, is to toast them in a dry pan until they become fragrant. Try it.)

I mashed the sweet potatoes with a fork, added a little bit of milk (available in tetra paks that don't need to be refrigerated until opened, like milk in most parts of the world I've visited) a big dollop of butter and all my carmelized and toasty warm toppings. Holy delicious, Batman.

And because I had some and promised her I'd try it, I added a couple dollops of Candice's Tofu Tahini.

Candice's description: Tofu Tahini:  Organic Creamy Tofu and Sesame tahini are blended with fresh Japanese Rice Wine Vinegar, Organic Green Onions and Organic Cilantro.  This dressing is rich and creamy with no Cream!  Not just delicious on salads, pour it over rice, pasta, beans, grilled chicken!

Holy Hannah, Robin! (I'm sorry, apparently tonight I'm 12 years old.) Candice sells it as a salad dressing, but if you are ever in need of a dairy-free, nutty and flavorful sour cream, this is it, folks. THIS is the stuff. It sure may not look pretty, but neither did I shoveling it into my mouth. 

Incidentally, if you're looking for a less butter-filled way to eat the stuff, might I recommend it as a dip with crudites?