happy days

Thanksgiving is upon us! It's such a wonderful holiday, a time to be thankful for the bounty this great land gives us. Truly, it is magnificent. We usually spend it with Mark's family in DesMoines, and this year is no different. This afternoon as Mom Sandor was working on the grocery list, I butted in and gave my two cents about things I could make...and how I might do them. (She likes to go strictly by recipes, but I like to edit them to my liking :)) I offered to make cranberry sauce, green beans with pearl onions, mashed sweet potatoes and mashed new potatoes. I'll share those recipes because they're super easy.

Homemade Cranberry Sauce:
1 cup of boiling water
1 cup of sugar
12 ounce bag of cranberries

Melt the sugar in the boiling water, then add the cranberries. Let it boil until the cranberries pop. Then lower to simmering and let it reduce until it becomes cranberry-saucy (?). If you want, you can serve it hot or chill it and serve it cold. (I am totally encouraged to know how to make REAL cranberry sauce, and it is therefore SO much better than the can!)

Green Beans with Pearl Onions:
1 lb of fresh green beans
1 cup of frozen pearl onions

Boil the green beans for a few minutes, 2 or 3. Then add the pearl onions and bring to a boil and cook for another minute.

This particular recipe calls for bacon. We don't eat bacon, so we are going to toss the beans and onions in melted butter, 2 tablespoons. Then add some cracked kosher salt and pepper and toss a little bit more. Perfecto.

** this recipe would have been good with less butter and turkey bacon pieces.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes:
4 pounds of sweet potatoes

Scrub and poke the sweet potatoes. Bake for at least 2 hours at 350. Let them cool (another couple hours) and peel. (I did this portion today, and will finish the rest up tomorrow...)

Add 1 stick of butter, a 1/4 cup of brown sugar, and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. Mix it...in a mixer. Taste it, as some sweet potatoes are sweeter than others. Add a little more brown sugar (and a little cream) if you like. Dump into a baking pan and heat for a 1/2 hour.

** I put the potatoes in the microwave for 2 minutes before I added the rest of the ingredients. Iused 1/2 cup of brown sugar. And when I put the thus-finished product in the pan, I decided to just finish it off as a "sweet potatoe caserole," which just means processing a cup of pecans and a 1/4 cup of brown sugar, topping the sweet potatoe mix & throwing it in the oven for awhile (the 1/2 hour should do, but we warmed it for a lot longer).


Mashed New Potatoes:  I've mentioned in the past how I love new potatoes more than any other potatoe for mashing because they are SO creamy! Here's how they're done...
4 pounds of new potatoes, scrubbed, quartered, boiled (for 20 or 30 minutes) and drained.

Beat the potatoes with a stick of butter, a 1/4 cup of 1/2 and 1/2 or heavy whipping cream, then salt and pepper. And voila! I might pan roast some garlic cloves and add it to the potatoes for a little kick. We'll see how it goes!

** I used 1/2 stick of butter. And I did pan roast some garlic, but I used it all in the green beans.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!