Sweet potato leaves?

15 years ago

My sweet potatoes failed to produce anything but leaves. This is my first time growing and instead of slips I planted pieces of potato. Anyway, wondering how good the leaves are and, if they are good, what's the best way to preserve? I'd like to clean out the garden and get the winter crops planted asap.

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cabrita

15 years ago

I just harvested mine and got both the roots and the leaves (more than I was expecting!). I had them on a 2 x 4 feet by 18 inch raised bed/box, sitting on garden dirt.

I made a frittata with a batch of the greens, and added some more of them to a vegetable sautee (along with peas and eggplant). Both were good. The flavor is somewhere between spinach and chard? I thought it was really pleasant and I feel silly I did not think to eat them last year.

The rest of the leaves I did lightly sauteed in olive oil, a little salt added, when it cooled I froze them. I will probably use the frozen portion for a spinach lasagna, except it will be a sweet potato greens lasagna. If I don't tell them nobody will guess....;-)

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Comments (8)

tracydr
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks Cabrita! The lasagna sounds fantastic! I think we are going to have sweet potato greens steamed with pork roast tonight.
How would you recommend preserving them?canning or blanching and freezing?
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cabrita
15 years ago
Canned greens make me think of Popeye cartoons....LOL.

The way I do it is wash really well, chop, sautee for a few minutes (leave some of the water that sticks to the leaves from washing, this way you have a steam/sautee combo effect going), cool and freeze.
tracydr
Original Author
15 years ago
O man are these ever good! I think I actually like them better than chard and spinach. And to find a green that actually thrives in AZ heat! I will be freezing quite a few pounds of SP greens! Thanks, Cabrita!
tracydr
Original Author
15 years ago
My husband has requested sweet potato leaves with canned black eye peas. Gotta love him!
Now, if I could just get him to eat sweet potatoes, squash and cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg I'd have him trained!
nancyofnc
15 years ago
I didn't know they were edibles! Probably have lots of vitamins and trace minerals in them. Oh pooh - my compost pile will be healthier than me!

Nancy
organic_dirtymama
8 years ago
Tracydr, if the things you listed are things he doesn't eat, he might be an A blood type...all those things are avoids (cause inflammation, digestive issues etc) for A blood types.
HU-800087923
5 years ago
We ate them raw as salad greens this year, too. (No, blood types don't have anything to do with what types of foods you can digest well or eat, lol. I'm an A-, and I love all of those things, and they don't bother me. Considering I'm intolerant of brassicas and a bunch of other stuff, that's actually fairly impressive). Nutmeg is gross, though. It's poisonous anyhow, so I don't know why anyone would want to eat it. I always cut it to 1/4 of what a recipe calls for because it's just such an obnoxious flavor that dominates too easily.