I recently was asked to judge a sweet potato recipe contest, and honestly, how could I say no to that? Food bloggers from around the country submitted their best recipes; the more than 100 entries were narrowed down to six. I had the privilege of tasting these six recipes, along with a couple other food editors. We then graded each dish according to taste, presentation, ease of preparation, creativity and importance of sweet potato in the recipe.

Overall, I was impressed with the entries I tasted. I'm used to seeing sweet potatoes roasted or mashed or in some casserole or puree form, but we had a soup, tacos, pizza, salad, cottage pie and cheesecake squares. Sounds delicious? Weird? Most of them were extremely creative and looked beautiful too. But there could only be one winner.

Well, the winner was... the sweet potato and rosemary pizza. It was gorgeous; the slices of bright orange potatoes were truly lovely, and the fresh rosemary added a nice fragrant touch (the photo doesn't really do it justice). A very close second was the cottage pie, which had a mashed sweet potato topping instead of regular ol' potatoes. It was was warm, hearty and comforting; a real crowd-pleaser. I also was a big fan of the cheesecake sweeties -- cheesecake bars swirled with a sweet potato filling.

  I admit that I don't eat sweet potatoes very often -- people generally associate them with Thanksgiving and cold weather -- but they're available year-round and are extremely good for you. (In fact, I went on a 3.5-hour bike ride the other day and came back tired but not exhausted, and I credit it entirely to the two fried eggs and half a sweet potato I had for breakfast that morning.) And I'll definitely be making these recipes at home. Check out all the recipes and see the finalists to get inspired.

Photos courtesy of Jason Stemm, Lewis & Neale