Sort of a pudding-like side dish. It takes about 5 medium sweet potatoes to equal 4 cups. If you use cooking sherry, omit the salt. If you want to get fancy, you can sprinkle the top with sliced almonds or finely chopped pecans during the last 5 minutes of baking. The preparation time does not include the time to initially cook the sweet potatoes-I do this in batches in the microwave, but have found the time to vary quite a bit depending on the microwave (my current one works much faster than my former one). I microwave them just until they're soft enough to mash.