Rachel made mashed yams for Christmas dinner and the color was amazing:

To the left is homemade breakfast sausage (from our own homestead pigs), with some mizuna mustard greens mixed in.

In the picture at the top of this post, the same mashed yams are presented next to a hickory smoked pork roast (also from our pigs).

The mashed yams were mostly from a large, white Dioscorea alata tuber, but they also had a few small pieces of purple ube yam mixed in, hence the amazing color.

Unlike sweet potatoes, these yams are starchy, not sweet, and can fill in for normal white potatoes.

To make mashed yams, just peel the yams, then chop them into chunks and boil them until they are fork-tender.

Then take them out of the water and mash them with some salt, milk (or cream), and butter.

That’s it! We’ve had friend visit who were unable to tell the difference between mashed potatoes and mashed yams.

This year I’m hoping to grow a lot of purple ube yams. We’re currently running two micro-propagation experiments where we cut small pieces of skin from roots and try to get it to sprout. It’s hard to find planting material here in the US so we’re trying to rapidly increase our stock for the spring. We’ll let you know if we can make it happen.

Finally, today is the third day of Christmas: the Feast of St. John the Apostle.