Sweet Potatoes with a Butter Pecan Crust
Traditionally, my menu for Thanksgiving gets set this week. Here’s a little bit of the history of Thanksgiving in my family.
I always tell people it was my mom who taught me not to be intimidated by any holiday meal or the size of the crowd. As I analyze it, I realize my mom boiled Thanksgiving down to a minimalistic meal that anyone could enjoy. Our family was always taking in the “orphans” – people who didn’t have anywhere to go on Thanksgiving. That meant we might have a parish priest, or we might have a roommate from college, or even a neighbor. All were welcome at our table. Add seven kids to that, maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend or two and we had a crowd.
My mother always ordered a fresh turkey straight from the farm. It was huge every year, 20 pounds-plus. To get a 20-pound turkey in a regular oven in the 60s, you had to take out the bottom rack, and really pray that it would squish in. You couldn’t have it touching the top element, so it was touch-and-go sometimes.
The turkey contained homemade stuffing that my mother got up really early to mix up. The turkey took all day to roast. The rest of the things on the menu repeated every year with little or no change. Around the turkey my mother would manage to crowd in some sweet potatoes, some acorn squash cut in half and filled with a butter pat that would melt into goodness. We might have some baked potatoes or more likely those would be cooked on the stove and mashed. Beyond what was in the oven, we always had a fruit plate, but nothing fancy. We kids wanted un-fancy anyway. We delighted in the canned pear halves, the canned peach halves, the maraschino cherries, and more. Of course, we had gravy. My job as I got tall enough to reach the stove was to stir it. Our rolls and pumpkin pies came from the bakery. Anything else we had was probably made by me as I got older. I think I made a Waldorf salad once. I can’t remember much more. We all enjoyed our meal and the turkey provided enough extra to have a meal of leftovers. I never felt deprived.
This leads me to the story of my Thanksgiving menu. I have made over 30 years of Thanksgiving menus and no two menus look alike...
Sweet Potatoes with a Butter Pecan Crust
If your family is open to going beyond that marshmallow sweet potato concoction this will surely be a HIT!
Start this dish the day before to lower the glycemic uptake. If you do, it won’t jack up your blood sugar so much and you’ll be able to have seconds without fear! You'll lower the glycemic index from the resistant starches if you cool the potatoes completely in the fridge and then finalize the dish before baking.
Make this for holidays or anytime!
Ingredients:
For the potatoes
3 lb of sweet potatoes (Usually about six. Depends on their size.)
Up to 1/2 cup of sugar (optional) I did NOT add this sugar. It’s really not necessary. Sweet potatoes are sweet enough!
6 Tbl of butter
1 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract (I use organic.) If your crowd loves sweet, make this 2 tsp.
1/2 tsp of grated sea salt, or to taste. This gives the potatoes that little zing.
Topping
1/4 cup of melted butter
1 cup of chopped pecans (You can toss in some pecan halves too)
1/2 cup of Swerve Brown. You can order this online. It’s amazing. Some stores have it now. Another brand is ZSweet. If you can’t get this and don’t have time to order it… use 1/4 cup of regular brown sugar.
1/2 cup of regular white flour
1/4 tsp of grated sea salt
Instructions:
Pro Tip: Starting the day before… or early in the morning the day you’ll serve it.
Set your oven to 400 degrees. Poke several holes in your sweet potatoes and put them on a cookie sheet. Warning: If you skip the cookie sheet, I promise you’ll have potato ooze all over the bottom of your oven and it will stick and burn. Bake the potatoes for about an hour until they are fork-tender and very soft. Take them out and let them cool long enough to be able to handle them. Slice them on one side, tip to tail, and scoop out all the goodness in the middle and put that in a large bowl.
Add the butter, vanilla, and salt. Beat with your mixer until the potatoes are smooth and the other elements are all mixed in.
Now you’re going to transfer this to your baking dish. Use a dish that can handle a few minutes under the broiler. It can be Pyrex, some other brand, or you can do what I did and put it in a cast-iron pan. Set that aside and make your topping.
I melt the butter first and leave it in the bottom of the bowl. Add the pecans, sugar sub (or sugar), flour, and salt. Mix this all up with your fork until it’s gooey. Spread this over your sweet potatoes. It can be done with a spoon in blobs and spread slightly. I leave a rim around the middle for showing off the orange potatoes.
Bake at 400 degrees until the topping is browned and the filling is hot and bubbly. This might take about 30 minutes. If it’s not quite browned on top, you can fire up your broiler and it will only take a couple of minutes more. I like my pecans to have a bit of char in places.
Serve hot.
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola
