potatoes with extra butter (because turkey, stuffing, and cranberries are just a given). At the top of his list was  common as it is for most people to enjoy sweet potato casserole at Tanksgiving, it was one dish that my fam- ily never included in our holiday menu. Not that we don’t like sweet potatoes, it just never made the cut. Too many other favorite dishes were picked by each person, too many other new recipes were tried each year by my mom. Well, it was time to change that!


I asked my husband if he had his aunt’s recipe – nope! We reached out to his family, but no one had a written recipe for her casserole either. Like so many generational recipes it was made from scratch and from memory, and probably a little different each time depending on what  good home cooks do and went on a hunt for the perfect sweet potato casserole recipe on the internet. Hundreds -  were the titles that accompanied most of these artfully done photos. All used the same basic ingredients: sweet potatoes, cinnamon, brown sugar, butter (my favorite ingredient) and marshmallows. Could they really taste     one based mainly on the picture of a lovely casserole topped with golden brown marshmallows and was sure I could mimic my husband’s family dish for the upcom- ing holiday.


Tanksgiving Day arrived. I gathered my ingredients,


carefully prepared the dish, and popped it in the oven once the turkey came out. As the family sat down later to enjoy our feast I anxiously awaited everyone’s re- sponse to our newest addition – the sweet potato cas- serole. Te overall verdict from the group was that it tasted great, well, from everyone except my husband. He politely told me that it was a good casserole, but that it did not taste like he remembered his Aunt’s tasting. A little disappointed (mainly because I really wanted him to have a taste of home that holiday) I started prodding  butter, or little marshmallows instead of big ones? His only offering was that the potatoes were too mushy – they needed to be in larger chunks. Okay, I could work with that. Te following Tanksgiving I tweaked my recipe a bit and made sure my sweet potatoes were cut in much larger pieces before I popped my dish in the oven. I was quite pleased with myself as people scooped up not-mushy sweet potato casserole onto their plates. I had nailed it this time…or so I thought! My husband’s opinion, much better than the previous year, but still not quite the same as Aunt Pat’s.


In no way was my husband being mean either year, he was just being honest. My casserole didn’t have that re-


INGREDIENTS:


3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly cubed


1 cup brown sugar ½ stick butter 2 teaspoons cinnamon ½ teaspoon nutmeg ½ teaspoon salt milk


½ bag of large marshmallows (the other ½ is for the children to eat while “helping”) INSTRUCTIONS:


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Boil potatoes until fork tender, drain.


Add the brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and mix until well com- bined. Add a small amount of milk to help coat the sweet potatoes with the other in- gredients. We do not mash ours, but this is where you could if you would like.


Put sweet potatoes in a casserole dish and top with marshmallows.


Bake for 15-20 minutes or until marshmal- lows are golden brown.


Enjoy!


membered taste from his childhood family Tanksgiv- ings. I think it’s amazing that food can do that! Te smells and tastes of food that we grew up on can in- stantly transport us back to a specific time and place, and it can seem like it was just yesterday we were there.           remember thinking was “too spicy” but now I would  it is Aunt Pat’s sweet potato casserole that brings back Tanksgiving days where cousins ran around outside together, everyone dressed up a little too fancy for his boyhood liking, and family thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.


 27


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