Friday, November 23, 2012

Sweet Potato Casserole



My bride is a wonderful cook, but she doesn't like to cook unless she has to. Therefore, I get to do most of the cooking - which I enjoy doing.  As the old adage goes, "there is always an exception to the rule" is true when it comes to Thanksgiving dinner.   This is when my bride comes alive in the kitchen and really enjoys being in the kitchen preparing meals. 


My assignment is always the same.  I am to make HER favorite Thanksgiving side item - Sweet Potato Casserole.  (I think this dish was one of the reasons she agreed to marry me.)  It's not hard, but it sure makes her tastebuds happy.


Ingredients for potato mix:                                           Ingredients for Topping:

3lbs. sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks                                1/3 cup all-purpose flour                             

¾ cups Splenda                                                                                                 2/3 cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup 1% or Skim milk                                                                                    1/8 tsp. salt

3 Tbsp. butter, melted                                                                                   2 Tbsp. melted butter

½ tsp. salt                                                                                                            2/3 cup chopped pecans

1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon                                                                             Mini-marshmallows (as needed)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 large eggs (room temp)

 

What’cha gotta do:

1)      Prep potatoes.   
 
2)      For potatoes, place them in a Dutch oven; cover with water and add cinnamon.  Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes.  Drain, cool five minutes.
 
 
             


 

3)      Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4)      In a large bowl, add potatoes, Splenda, milk, melted butter, salt, and vanilla.  Beat with a mixer until smooth.  Add eggs and beat well.  Pour this potato mixture into a 9x13 inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
 
 
5)      Topping prep- in a small bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, and salt.  Mix well.  Stir in melted butter and blend completely.  Sprinkle this mixture over the entire potato mix in the casserole dish.

6)      Alternate between pecans and marshmallows to ‘stripe’ the casserole.


7)      Bake for 25 minutes or just golden.  ( I turn the broiler on for the last 30 seconds to “brown” the marshmallows well.


This was a big success at our Thanksgiving table.  Even my non Sweet Tater eating Tater Tot ate some!
ENJOY!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

They look delicious. It's interesting that you use Splenda in the potatoes but real brown sugar in the topping. Is that so the topping gets the crunchy, caramelized thing going?

Richard said...

Trying to lighten it up as much as possible. I actually used a Splenda Brown Sugar blend...