November 22, 2006

Thanksgiving is Finally Here

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I can hardly wait. We always spend Thanksgiving Day with my in-laws in Mt. Vernon. My mother-in-law Josefa cooks a mean turkey and stuffing and a wonderful Chocolate Silk Pie.

I remember my first Thanksgiving with the McConnell family. The whole house smelled as good as my mother’s own house. Josefa makes everything from scratch, which I believe is the only true way to cook a Thanksgiving dinner.

Her turkey is what I recall the most though. She puts it in the oven the night before, stuffing and all, and bakes it all night at a very low temperature. I always wake up in the morning wanting to eat turkey for breakfast!

Her turkey is so moist, tender and succulent….Oh, I can hardly wait until tomorrow.

For the McConnell Thanksgiving I’ve made a couple of items to bring along for dinner. I made a batch of the Molasses Spice Cookies (Which if you haven’t tried this recipe yet, you really should. These cookies are the perfect snack while waiting to indulge in turkey and stuffing.), a Texas Pecan Pie (Josefa usually makes her Chocolate Silk Pie and a Cherry Pie for Charlie’s dad, Raymond), a bottle of Champaign (for a fun night) and a Sweet Potato Bake (A recipe a recently I tried from my most recent Paula Deen magazine.) I’ve included this recipe in today’s post. I hope you enjoy it as much as my family does.

Sweet potatoes are a true southern delicacy. What would a southern Thanksgiving be without sweet potatoes?

Sending you Happy Thanksgiving wishes and your best dishes!

Sweet Potato Bake
By Paula Deen


3 cups cooked, peeled and mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted butter
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. ginger
¼ cup heavy cream or half and half

Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup walnuts or pecans
1/3 cup all purpose flour
3 T. melted butter

Mix all ingredients for bake except the cream. Beat at medium speed. Then add cream and mix well. Pour into a 2 quart greased dish.

For the topping mix all ingredients together with a fork and sprinkle over the top of casserole.

Bake for 25-30 minutes in a 325 degree oven.

5 comments:

Jean said...

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We're actually making the treck to MO this weekend! We have friends who live on this side of St. Louis, in ILL, with whom we'll be staying. And you probably won't get this until you get back to work Monday...so now that I was thinking about you and how close (compared to MI) that we were to you. :)

Lane said...

Jean,

I hope you have safe travels over the holiday. It's funny you're headed my way to Mo and I'm headed to the very southwestern tip of Missouri....

You and your will be in my thoughts over the holiday.

Best wishes!

Wendy said...

Thank you for posting this. I couldn't find it on food network but when I typed the recipe title in google your's was the second choice.

You made my Thanksgiving!

Anonymous said...

Thanks also for posting this!!! I am in charge of making the sweet potato casserole this year and I couldn't get ahold of my friend that had the recipe. Thanks for saving me from making something that wouldn't turn out right!!!

niuc.rn777 said...

I was looking for my sweet potato fluff recipe and am so thankful to find this one instead. It is very close to the one I normally use, but I am up for something a little different today and have found Paula Deen recipes to be reliable. Have a great Thanksgiving!