Cooking is a hobby of mine. Food is just another creative medium. Ingredients are the colors on my palette. While I follow recipes, I often like to create my own concoctions or fuse elements of different recipes together. The following is one of my own creations.
Ingredients: 3 large sweet potatoes/yams
1 can of apricots in pear juice concentrate
1/2 cup of jumbo flame raisins
1/2 teaspoon high end vanilla extract (DON"T USE IMITATION- yuck)
1/3 cup brown sugar (for topping)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (for topping)
1/2 cup almond slivers (for topping)
1 tablespoon butter cut into bits (for topping)
Preheat oven to 375'. Roast sweet potatoes/yams until you can easily pierce them with a fork. Remove the skins and toss them. Place potatoes in a food processor or blender with drained apricots and vanilla. Puree to your preferred texture (some people like smooth; others like it lumpy). Depending upon the size of your blender/processor, you may need to do this in batches.
Scoop puree into a glass baking dish. Gently fold the raisins into the potato/apricot puree with a rubber spatula.
In a glass mixing bowl, toss brown sugar, almond slivers, cinnamon and butter and sprinkle over potato mixture. This can be prepared a day ahead and kept in the fridge. Bake the potatoes at 375' until raisins plump and brown sugar topping is bubbly and gooey. About 30 minutes give or take.
When making my own dishes, I don't use exact measurements. Rather, I go by taste, smells and "looks good to me," so please adjust any of the ingredients to suit your own tastes.
My best friend's husband who has never liked sweet potatoes LOVES this dish. In fact, he's already requested I prepare it next week.

Food is supposed to be fun and pleasurable. Don't be afraid to experiment in the kitchen. Oh yeah, this is a healthier alternative to sweet potatoes smothered in marshmallow.
ENJOY!!!