Happy Thanksgiving!

Once again, I have been on a blog hiatus.  With Thanksgiving on its way, I have been preoccupied with getting out the Christmas decorations, making our Christmas card, addressing them, planning Thanksgiving meals, finishing up last minute projects at school, and tossing back and forth as to where we were actually going to celebrate Thanksgiving this year.  This Thanksgiving is a little different from years past.  My brother is off to Colorado and left this Thanksgiving morning at 4:30am.  My husband has to work at the hospital, helping others on this thankful holiday.  I am blessed with the fact that I get to eat 2 Thanksgiving dinners this week.  However, none of them will actually be on Thanksgiving Thursday.  Yesterday (Wednesday), we had our first Thanksgiving dinner, with my brother.  We cooked all of our favorites from sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, and turkey, to cornbread stuffing, gravy, and homemade apple pie.  We popped a can of cream corn in a saucepan for my dad, and had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal.  We tried a few new recipes, and stuck with a few old favorites.  We are celebrating our next Thanksgiving on Saturday so that my husband can enjoy one of his favorite holidays.  Today, we are not stressed to get everything done in time, we are in our pajamas, the house does not have to be cleaned, and I couldn't be more thankful for this relaxing day.  However, since our first dinner was a success, I am very much looking forward to our second big meal this weekend! I don't think that I will want to eat a turkey dinner for a few weeks!

I am sharing a simple recipe for the sweet potato casserole that we made.  We tried to not make it too sugary, too sweet, or too unhealthy.  We stuck to simple ingredients and allowed the natural sweet flavor of the sweet potato to shine.  It turned out to be easy and delicious and even got the stamp of approval from the men at the table.  We did make one side with pecans and one side with marshmallows   Both were equally delicious. This recipe makes about 4 servings, however, we actually had a little bit leftover!

Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cloves
a handful of pecans
a handful of marshmallows
1 tablespoon maple syrup

Directions:

(I don't have pictures... I guess that I have used up all of the space for pictures.  I am working on getting more space!)

 1. In a 400 degree F oven, make the sweet potatoes for about 40 minutes, or until soft and cooked all the way through.

2.  Allow the sweet potatoes to cool a little bit.  Cut them in half and scoop out the inside of the sweet potato and place in a mixing bowl.

3.  Add the orange juice, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.  Mix well.

4.  Place the sweet potato mixture in a small glass baking dish.

5. You choose: On one side of the casserole, we added pecans to the top and then drizzled the maple syrup.  On the other side, we added the marshmallows.  

6. Turn the broiler on in the oven and cook until nice and toasted.  This will only take about 5 minutes.

Until next time...

-A