So. Is everybody thankful? I am thankful to be home for a nice, long holiday weekend. The trains were running on time Wednesday night too, so getting here wasn't nearly the ordeal that I feared.
Yesterday was all cooking. Cranberry sauce, buttermilk pie, turkey breast with cornbread stuffing, sweet potato casserole, and broccoli sautéed with pine nuts and currants.
Oz normally wants the cranberry tower (or cranberry log, once the can-shaped mass of cranberry jelly falls over). This year I pleaded for actual cranberries, seeing as how they have actual flavor and cranberry sauce is really easy to make. He obliged me with a couple packages of cranberries and I prepared this recipe (check out the discussion of variations in the comments). I substituted dark brown sugar for the sugar, and apple juice for the water. After the cranberries broke up and simmered down a bit, I added a half cup of chopped pecans and a quarter cup or so of currants. The sauce thickened up into what is basically cranberry jam. It's good on everything. I'm already planning experiments (less sugar, blackstrap molasses, citrus fruits, etc.) for the next holiday.
Since I was not in town to do my usual sweet potato preparations for pie and soufflé, I asked Oz to pick up some large cans of yams so I could make the sweet potato casserole which is de rigeur for the Ohio branch of the family. I have a dot matrix printout of their recipe for "Kims Sweet Potatoes". I will publish it here for backup in case I lose the paper. I will also correct the punctuation. And I have no idea who Kim is.
Kim's Sweet Potatoes
2 large (40 oz.) cans sweet potatoes or yams
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/2 to 2/3 cup melted butter (one stick of butter is fine, but feel free to add more if you're not getting enough butter in your holiday diet)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup bourbon (optional, but, hey, you might not be getting enough bourbon either)
Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
6 tablespoons flour
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Drain the cans of sweet potatoes and place the sweet potatoes in a large bowl. Pick off any coarse strings (those would be rootlets), unless you're fond of stringy textures (in which case, you can eat and floss at the same time). Mash the sweet potatoes to the desired level of smoothness.
In another bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar, then add the butter, salt, vanilla, and bourbon. Mix well, then stir into the sweet potatoes until well blended. Pour the sweet potato mixture into the baking dish and spread it out evenly.
For the topping, mix together the sugar and flour, then cut in the butter. Mix in the pecans. Sprinkle the topping onto the sweet potatoes.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes.
The sweet potatoes actually taste better after they've cooled off a bit. In the event that you have any leftovers (my horde of Ohio relatives never do), they taste even better eaten cold from the refrigerator the next day. They are also pretty damn good with that cranberry sauce on the side.
Now my burning question is, how long till my buddy Jon shows up and says that his family makes the exact same thing, only with chocolate chips?
575 words | November 23, 2007 05:43 PM | KitchenHappy Thanksgiving--! Wow, that is some sweet potato recipe there. Sounds insanely good and insanely fattening at the same time. My husband has been declared allergic to wheat-dairy-eggs, so that rules out such indulgences.
For 'stuffing', I used rice instead of bread, and since it was supposed to be 'mixed grains' (or so the recipe declared), and because I had neglected to purchase in advance the five kinds of grains the recipe called for, i made it with brown rice, wild rice and... oatmeal (the cracked grain-type, not Quaker oats). And no, I didn't see fit to mention that fact to anyone at the table.
It turned out quite nicely, and I may make it again next year, too.
Janice
My condolences to your husband! Though I think the sweet potato recipe would stand up pretty well to substitutions: oat or spelt flour in place of wheat flour, margarine instead of butter, and some vegan egg substitute (there is a wealth of options).
Your mixed grain stuffing sounds great. Oz traditionally uses stuffing mix from a bag, but mixed grains sounds a lot more flavorful. I discovered with the cranberry sauce that flavor can trump tradition, so maybe next year.
Posted by: 100 word minimum at November 24, 2007 10:26 AMSubsitutions? Oh, absolutely. Second nature by now. Eggs are the only hard thing to truly substitute in baking. The 'egg replacer' only goes so far.
The mixed grain stuffing is quite good, oatmeal and all. If i'd added a lot more sage, it would have tasted closer to the bread stuffing people are used to. Want the recipe?
As for cranberries, the real fruit is so easy to use---who needs the canned version?! I have heard, however, that there is somewhat of a shortage of cranberries this year. If you're inclined to experiment further, best to act now or you'll be waiting until next year.
Janice
Posted by: janice at November 25, 2007 08:43 AMLiz made a similar cranberry concoction this year that included live cranberries, sugar, orange juice, cloves and cinnamon. It was very well received even though I'm not wild about cranberries.
Posted by: tim at November 25, 2007 11:41 AM"Live" cranberries? Love it!
My mother makes a killer concoction that grinds together cranberries, orange slices, apples, walnuts. I think the recipe is on the bag. Anyway, that's traditional fare for our T-day meals. She made a huge batch this year, and since the fridge was so full, I set it outside in a plastic container with a lid to stay cold. Well, the next morning, horror of horrors, we discovered that squirrels love my mom's recipe as much as we do. They'd popped off the lid and were digging in enthusiastically. We ended up putting the remainder on the compost pile for the squirrels to polish off. At least they got their vitamin C....
Posted by: Janice at November 25, 2007 11:49 PMSo squirrels like cranberry relish as much as my family? My mom makes that every year, but I may have turned her with my cranberry sauce (I'd have used orange juice if we'd had it). That sauce came out like pie filling and gave my mom a sense memory of this cherry cake that her mother used to make, way back when.
We still have a pack of cranberries (Oz bought two). I'm looking forward to experimenting this weekend.
Posted by: 100 word minimum at November 26, 2007 08:55 PM