By Suzanne (“Nana”)
Thanksgiving is one of my favorites holidays.
What better way to spend a day than cooking and eating with loved ones?
Full disclosure: I always buy one bottle of expensive French champagne, which makes the day all the more enjoyable!
For many years, our Thanksgiving meals did not include turkey. My vegetarian phase during the ‘80s and ‘90s inspired us to create imaginative and (usually) delicious “turkeys” crafted from tofu, seitan, or sometimes a hubbard squash!
In recent years I’ve purchased organic, pastured turkeys from our Amish friends. While all those years of vegetarianism left me with only rudimentary meat-cooking skills, turkey is pretty simple to prepare. I always make stuffing using sprouted bread and lots of onions and celery. Because Maia and I don’t eat much turkey, I make sure to have lots of vegetables—usually brussel sprouts, salad, green beans, and sweet potatoes or yams.
The highlight of this year’s meal for me was the yams, so I’ll provide my preparation below.
Maple Yams
Yams and sweet potatoes are among my favorite vegetables. They provide plenty of sweet taste all on their own, but for a special dish on a holiday I make them even sweeter and richer. This recipe is my healthier adaptation of the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch Thanksgiving dish of candied sweet potatoes–a classic where I grew up in Lancaster, PA.
Ingredients
- 6 medium sweet potatoes
- pinch of sea salt
- About ¼ cup of butter or your choice of fat (olive oil or coconut oil or whatever you enjoy)
- About ¼ cup of maple syrup or maple sugar or to taste (the classic Amish recipe calls for ¾ a cup of brown sugar!)
Directions
- Cook the whole sweet potatoes by covering with water and simmering at a medium temperature.
- Once cool enough to touch, remove the peels and cut the potatoes in half lengthwise.
- Heat the butter or oil in a skillet or frying pan. Add maple syrup and stir. Add ½ to ¾ cups of water and bring to a boil.
- Lay sweet potato halves in syrup and cook slowly, using a metal spatula to turn halves so both sides brown evenly.
Makes 6 servings
Be well,
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Darshana Maya Greenfield says
Would you post the recipe for your gluten-free almond-meal pie crust, that you used on your blueberry tart? Thanks much!!
Janna says
Suzanne– This sounds so good! When you say cut the potatoes in half lengthwise, do you make just the one cut ending up with 2 halves? Later in the recipe you say “slices” of potatoes and that makes me think there are more than 2 halves per potato. So would you clarify this? How many slices do you cut each potato into?
Thanks!!
Suzanne says
Hi Janna, sorry for the confusion. Yes I meant just the halves. I will fix slices. Thanks of letting me know.
marian says
Hi Suzanne,
Yummy!! Would you share the recipe for your stuffing using sprouted bread and lots of onions and celery??
Suzanne Weaver-Goss says
HI Marian,
I don’t use a recipe. It depends on how many people we are having as to how much bread I use. I use Ezekiel Sprouted Bread and cut it up into bite size squares. I then sit it out overnight in a bowl to get stale. I saute lots of onions and celery in butter and add to stale bread. Salt and pepper and that’s it. Very easy. You can add what herbs you like.