Thanksgiving Recipe

My recipe is made up by me due to previous failures.  I have all these cook books and I do not read them.  I like the pictures.  I will never fully graduate from First Grade.  Friends and strangers ask for my recipes anyway.

So Deb, here is the recipe for sweet potato casserole.

Four sweet potatoes.  NOT yams.  They will try to tell you in the grocery that they are the same, but they are not.  Only The South knows this.

Figure one potato per person for a beginning. Maybe 1/2 per person.

Wash, coat lightly with oil and put them in the oven to bake until the skin puffs up real big.  If it dries and wrinkles you are too late: all the juice has evaporated.  You will have to add a little water.  I prefer chicken stock.

Remove the potatoes from the oven, peal of the skins carefully so as not to disturb the potato.  Slice or cut with kitchen scissors or a knife one inch or less wide across the grain.  This will eliminate the strings that you mentioned. Cut off and toss the two potato butts.  That is where all the strings come together to support the meat.

Grease a 9/13 baking dish.  Set aside.

In a large bowl put the sliced hot potatoes.  Smash and hand beat the meat with vigor.  Some of my friends say, “Leave them lumpy.”

Stir in a goodly amount of pecans or walnuts.  Leave the nuts as large chunks or halves so the casseole does not feel like gravel in the mouth.

At this point it is all about texture.

Ever wonder why kids do not like nuts in the their brownies: gravel. The ‘rocks’ they call them get hung up in their missing teeth slots and later in life their braces.

Stir in light brown sugar to taste.  Do not use dark brown sugar as the potatoes will turn an inedible color.  Too sweet is not good. Remember the nuts are sweet; the potatoes are sweet. I don’t add much salt but maybe just a little Pure Vanilla liquor ( a little goes a long way, so be careful).  Most stores still sell it if where you live in Alabama is not Pentecostal Baptist.  The basic Southern Methodist township is the best.

I bought mine in Prince George on a liquor cruise.

Some people add pineapple. You can too, but remember that is adding sweet to sweet).

If I am serving them in Texas, I stir in crumbles of hard fried bacon.  Bacon is a seasoning down here in Zone 9.

Put the mixture into the greased baking dish. If you did not opt for the bacon, put patties of butter down into the mixture every so often.

Lay thinly sliced lemons solid across the top.  Without the lemons the potatoes will turn dark and ugly.  The lemons counter balance the sweetness.

Bake at 375 to 400 for 30 to 45 minutes.  The lemons replace the foil cover.  If this scares you, lightly lay a sheet on top of the baking dish so the steam will continue to escape.

Remove from the oven.

Remove the lemons.  Some cooks often leave the lemons, or call them candied. I absolutely hate to bite into a lemon peal with a mouth set up for sweet.  Some folks do not have a sweet tooth; rather a sweet jawbone.

Now for the grand finale.

TWO bags of Marshmallows: only use the large ones.  Only use Marshmallow brand in the purple bag.  I have my reasons and the off store brands lie.  Those work best on the end of a coat hanger over a campfire. 

Lay on the top back to back or side to side.  This should take one bag of marshmallows.

Place the mixture on the bottom rung of the oven.  Turn the oven on to broil. Leave the oven door cracked open.

STAND THERE and watch the marshmallows brown.  If they start to brown on one side too much, turn the baking dish around.

Important Information: Do not A.D.D. on yourself and leave your post in order to do just one little old thing that won’t take a minute.

Believe me, you will forget the potatoes.  Experienced cooks all know this.

The smoke alarm will go off : You will go back to the oven: You will open the door and the inside will resemble a girl scout campfire: You will shout:::::::FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK:::::::

Sixteen seated guest, your new husband’s entire family, will know your real self real well real quick. Only one will have the gumption to come into the smoke filled kitchen and say, “It’s okay, it’s okay, Rowwanda likes them that way.”

Translated: Rowwanda (Southern spelling) has learned to eat her failures.

Gently peal off the smouldering black breast plate armor so as not to get charcoal flakes in the potatoes.  Reach for that second bag of Marshmallows and place them over the small amount of remaining white goo topping.

Gently brown the second line of volunteer marshmallows and seriously follow the previous directions.  WaLa!! You have successfully completed the hardest part.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Footnote: Down here in Texas we wrap Blue Ribbon thick sliced pepper bacon around everything; even Atlantic Alaskan Salmon.  Our taste buds are prefried.  And it is a good thing being able to re-fix and serve our cooking failures.  We do not always have that priveledge with the rest of life’s mishappenings.

FROM: Gaylee’s Kitchen filled with promise.

  

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