Sweet Potato Casserole

We stopped at a roadside stand the other day and purchased a 20 pound bag of local homegrown sweet potatoes for only $10.00. I like shopping local and supporting our local shops and farmers. When I got home I was thinking of great recipes to make and one idea was a baked candied sweet potato and another was a sweet potato casserole.

Candied Baked Sweet Potato

This is my version of a candied baked sweet potato! I microwaved the potato until cooked through, then cut it in half. Next I mashed the sweet potato in the skin, adding butter to the mashed potato. I sprinkled the top with mini marshmallows, brown sugar and more butter. After being in the microwave for about 30 seconds, all the ingredients melted and my candied baked sweet potato was delicious! If I had more time I would have baked the sweet potato in the oven but this way it was ready in about 10 minutes.

Sweet Potato Casserole

Yesterday I made the most delicious dinner with a sweet potato casserole, green beans with bacon and almonds and pulled pork. This is how I made my sweet potato casserole. Lia helped me and we just added ingredients as we went along.

We started by peeling and cutting six sweet potatoes in cube sized pieces. While they were boiling we pulled ingredients out of the cupboard. Lia grabbed cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar and almond flavoring for starters.

These are the next steps with Lia mashing the cooked sweet potatoes then adding our secret ingredient. She added 1/4 cup of International Delight sweet cream creamer! Next to add was 2 tablespoons of butter and 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Lia would mix each ingredient in before she added another. She then sprinkled in about 1/2 teaspoon of cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon and topped it off with a teaspoon of almond flavoring. We added about 1/8 cup of milk since the potatoes were a bit too thick. That was perfect! Quite a mix but we’ll see how it turns out after it bakes!

But wait, I had another idea! Since I didn’t have any canned pineapple that I usually add to my canned sweet potatoes I came up with the idea of cutting up pieces of dried pineapple to add to the mixture.

It was time to prepare the baking dish so Lia wiped the bottom and edges with butter before pouring the mixture in the dish. The last ingredient was mini marshmallows over the top with more pats of butter. We baked it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Our sweet potato casserole smelled so good while baking and tasted delicious when it was done!

Green Beans with Bacon

As long as I tried something new with the sweet potatoes, I decided to prepare my green beans a different way too. I started by frying up some bacon. When I use small pieces of bacon I cut a chunk of bacon out of the package and then cut it in small pieces with my meat shears. It cooks and browns quickly without having much grease. If you can’t or don’t eat bacon, omit it and just add avocado oil and butter to the pan before adding the green beans.

Next is to toss in the frozen green beans in with the bacon and the small amount of bacon grease from frying it and saute them until thawed. I added a handful of slivered almonds and cooked a few minutes more until the beans were tender. The green beans with bacon and almonds were a perfect side with the sweet potato casserole.

Our meal is complete with the delicious sweet potato casserole, green beans and left over pulled pork. If you try the sweet potato casserole or green beans, I’d love to hear your thoughts.