I went to the "Rock" (as in Roxboro, NC) for Thanksgiving today. That's where my grandmother lives, we had a smallish gathering that included Mama H, Kim, Dixon, Skip, Maggie, Mom, Dad, and the Pattens--Sarah, Aaron, and Emma. As usual the food was outstanding, and I even got to load up a tin pie-plate with leftovers for the weekend.

If Brooklynne was here, I'm sure she would have gone all out to contribute our share of the fixin's, so there was some pressure for me to represent our branch of the Travis clan. However, I've only really been to the store once since Brooklynne left, and all I got was spaghetti sauce and noodles. So, it was time for some old-school, Miles-style razzle-dazzle in the kitchen.

I got up this morning and surveyed the available ingredients. I wanted to make something traditional, but I really didn't have anything that fit the bill, so I had to be creative. Here's my train of thought:

Let's see.... I have one sweet potato (left from before Brooklynne flew out). That's kind of Thanksgivingy. What could I make that takes only one sweet potato? A pie? No--that takes 2 lbs. This one is maybe 1/2 lb. Maybe that would be enough for cookies? Is there such a thing as sweet potato cookies? (I looked in The Joy of Cooking.) No sweet potato cookies listed. But I do have all the ingredients for oatmeal cookies. Could I make sweet potato flavored oatmeal cookies? I'll never know until I try....

An hour and a half later I had a large dish of sweet potato-oatmeal cookies. Don't laugh--they got rave reviews at dinner. In fact, they got such good reviews, that I am posting the recipe here for my own future reference and for Kim and Mama H. One caveat before I continue, though: this was an experimental batch, and they came out kind of flat and gooey, so the baking time is still open to tweaking. I'm putting exactly what I did in the directions below, but I'll put a note at the bottom of the recipe explaining baking time and temp options that might be worth experimenting with.

1. Position a rack in the top third of the oven.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 375.
3. Grease several cookie sheets (at least 3 for the most efficient baking rotation).
4. Skin, chop, and boil 1 average-sized sweet potato until it is very soft.
5. Whisk together:
   • 2 cups all-purpose flour
   • 1 teaspoon baking soda
   • 1 teaspoon baking powder
   • 1/2 teaspoon salt
   • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
   • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
   • 1/2 teaspoon all-spice
   • 1/2 teaspoon cloves.
6. Beat until well blended:
   • 2 sticks unsalted butter (softened)
   • 1.5 cups packed light or dark brown sugar (this is what the oatmeal cookie recipe called for, but I discovered at this point that I did not have brown sugar, so I substituted 1.5 cups regular white sugar and 3/4 cup molasses)
   • 3/4 cup sugar (just to be clear, this is in addition to the other sugar I used to simulate the brown sugar)
   • 2 large eggs (Kim mentioned that increasing the eggs may help the cookies keep their shape later--so perhaps worth trying 3 eggs?)
   • 2.5 teaspoons vanilla.
7. Beat the sweet potato into the butter mixure until the "sauce" is smooth.
8. Stir the flour mixture into the butter/potato mixure.
9. Stir in 4 cups rolled oats.
10. Use a tablespoon to drop the dough onto the cookie sheets. An even tablespoon will make a large cookie. You should space them at least two inches apart, and I got the best results by limiting myself to only 9 cookies per sheet.
11. Bake one sheet at a time. I found that 10 minutes was the best amount of time, but I was also using the "speed bake" feature on my oven. If you do not have "speed bake," you may have to bake the cookies longer, or increase the temp to 400. The cookies will come out darker bron than typical oatmeal cookies and you should take them out when they are just barely firm in the middle.
12. Let the cookies firm up on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a rack for cooling. I got in a rhythm of taking one sheet out of the oven, placing the next sheet in to bake, and then loading a third sheet with dough while the first sheet cooled (thus the 3 sheets from step 3 above). Once the third sheet was ready to go in the oven, the first sheet would be cool and the cookies could be removed to the cooling rack. Then I would repeat the pattern. The recipe yielded 6 batches of 9 large cookies (54 total).