Day After Tomorrow We Feast!

Did you wake up, with the sudden realization that Thanksgiving is day after tomorrow?  And you're supposed to bring the sweet potatoes...but you don't make sweet potatoes?!  WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?  You know the grocery's shelves are empty by now, right???  No cans of the orange darlings, no bags of marshmallows to be found. It's too late to order them all made up from the deli counter.  What will they still have in abundance?  Simple, old-fashioned, made from scratch ingredients.  Besides, you probably already have most of these in your pantry and fridge.  Yes, Virginia, you can make these from scratch and watch people swoon!

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes
3 medium sweet potatoes, baked, flesh scooped out (about 3 cups) You bake these babies just like a regular potato, prick it, rub the outside with butter, BUT put them on a foil lined baking sheet because they are messier bakers)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon (I use a rounded measure for the cinnamon and nutmeg.)
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup heavy cream, half & half, or whole milk  I've made it all ways, it's all good!

Topping
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1/3 cup flour
3 Tablespoons butter, melted 

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Mix all the sweet potato ingredients together EXCEPT the cream.  Beat with an electric mixer until smooth.  Add the cream and mix well.  Pour into a greased casserole dish, about the size of an 8" x 8" one.

Mix the topping ingredients together with a fork and sprinkle over the top of the sweet potatoes.

Bake 25 - 30 minutes.

Watch the sweet potato haters convert!



Okay, I have written more about being thankful, and deleted them all, than you might imagine.  Why can't I get it down?  What's the block Sherri?  What's the happs?  It's that time of year.  You have friends who have been posting since the beginning of November, what they are thankful for each day.  I don't know, but I suspect, that it's because, at 44, I have had my share of unexpected tragedy, despair and devastation.  I know I'm not alone in this.  But because I'm truly an optimist, I have always found the blessing, however tiny, and clung, sometimes desperately, to it. 

So when I contemplate my deeply thankful spirit, I tend toward the dramatic, I get a little maudlin, I usually shed a few tears.  But without those experiences...would I be as determined as I am to find the joy in it all?  Would I have the strength I have?  Would I have been able to simply be glad my daughter and I weren't the first guy in line at the ER a couple weeks ago?   Nope.  And there you have it.  My grandma was right, those things that haven't killed me, have indeed made me stronger.  Contributed greatly to the woman I've become.  So those ugly parts of your life?  They happen. But if you can find the ray of hope, even if it's that you will see you can get through it, hold on to that.  Because neither the good or the bad last forever!  Revel in the good, know the bad will pass.  It's how you let those things define you, that make you who you are.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!
~S

Confessions and Cranberries

Thanksgiving is creeping up on us!  I LOVE Thanksgiving dinner.  It is, hands down, my all time favorite meal.  I savor the co-mingling of the sweet from sweet potato souffle, with the saltiness of my Aunt Maria's cucumber salad, the smooth as silk gravy flowing over the lumpy mashed potatoes, the combination of hot and cold things on my plate at the same time, the mellow flavors of the turkey and dressing with the pungent tartness of good, home made cranberry sauce.  I am totally one of those people who doesn't really want anything to do with a cranberry sauce that came out of can. Sorry.  It's one of those things about me you just have to know.  I will never, ever, forget being at my grandmother's house one Thanksgiving and watching her carefully, slowly, painstakingly coaxing the cranberry sauce gelatin out of the can and rejoicing in the perfect lines from the can that allowed her to make even slices of the stuff.  Even at the tender age I was, I knew there had to be a better way.  Go ahead and try and guess which grandma.  I have 3, so you've only got a 33% of guessing correctly.  If you knew any of these fine ladies, you will likely be able to eliminate one right off the bat.  And my grandma with the canned stuff, well, she's got many, many other fabulous attributes so I don't think she worries too much about our cranberry differences.

But I digress.  You must make this cranberry recipe.  I have made several over the years, including my other grandma's which with her doubled sugar was my favorite standby until I found this one a couple years back. It is the ONLY cranberry recipe you need.  And you can make it the weekend before Thanksgiving, eliminating one thing to do on the day of.  In fact, it's better made ahead so all the flavors can mingle and marry.  And the color is breathtaking.  Put it in a cut crystal bowl, or any glass dish you have, and it just gleams on the table.

ALICE'S CRANBERRY SAUCE (from the Sweet & Savory blog by Alice if I remember correctly)

12 oz. bag cranberries
3/4 cup orange juice
2/3 cup brown sugar (I use dark brown)
1/3 cup white sugar
2 oz. rum (optional) Now you know I use this.  It gives it so much more depth of flavor.

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and cook on medium high 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  The cranberries will pop.  Cool.  Refrigerate until the big day.

That's IT!  Simple, you probably already have every single ingredient except the cranberries, but you're going to the grocery anyway, so buy some ahead and freeze the bag if you want to.  Just that before you cook 'em.  With this recipe there is simply no reason for that nasty canned stuff to be on anybody's table.  I'm just going to lay it out there.

Gobble gobble,
~S

This Wednesday (today) RIGHT NOW...

...really just might kill me if it doesn't end soon.

Just sayin'.

xoxo
~S