These baked sweet potato halves couldn’t be easier to throw together, but the unexpected addition of piney rosemary and fresh lime makes them anything but ordinary.

　　

Ingredients

serves 4 to 8

　　

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

　　

Step 2

Drizzle 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon melted unsalted butter onto a rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary and sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Cut 4 sweet potatoes in half lengthwise. Rub the cut side of each potato half in the butter, olive oil, and seasonings and arrange, cut side down, on the baking sheet.

　　

Step 3

Bake until the potatoes are soft to the touch and the cut sides are golden brown, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve warm with sea salt and lime wedges to squeeze over the potatoes.

　　

Sara’s Swaps

Step 4

Try using different sweet potato varieties, like rosy Covingtons and Beauregards, sweet orange Vardamans (named after the Mississippi town touted as the “sweet potato capital of the world”), pale O’Henrys, and purple sweet potatoes, to see which ones you like best. You also can make this dish with similar results using peeled slices of winter squash, like butternut, acorn, or delicata. For a more savory interpretation, try using Yukon Gold, Russian Banana Fingerling, or White Rose potatoes.

　　

On the Side

Step 5

Because they couldn’t be easier to throw together, I make these rosemary-inflected sweet potatoes all the time when they are in season, and I serve them with anything from Pat’s Skillet-Seared Steak with Herb Butter (page 185) or Crispy Pork Chops (page 162) to Pickled Jalapeño Meatloaf (page 191) or Granny Foster’s Sunday Fried Chicken (page 127).

　　Reprinted with permission from Sara Foster's Southern Kitchen: Soulful, Traditional, Seasonal by Sara Foster. Copyright © 2011 by Sara Foster. Published by Random House. All Rights Reserved.Sara Foster is the owner of Foster's Market, the acclaimed gourmet take-out store/cafés in Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the author of several cookbooks including The Foster's Market Cookbook, winner of the Best Cookbook Award from the Southeast Booksellers Association. She has appeared numerous times on Martha Stewart Living Television and NBC's Today show. She has also been featured in magazines such as More, House Beautiful, and Southern Living, and is featured regularly in Bon Appétit.