Thanksgiving Dinner's, we have two days of celebration

Our first celebration is with my husbands family, and we all get together on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. 

This year I have a tripod, and was able to get all of us in the photo.  We had a great night, and I brought sweet potato dishes to share, and a green lettuce salad.  This is much more of the traditional Thanksgiving meal, with all the sweetened foods and such I took the first sweet potato dish for the family, and so that my husband would be happy. The second was for me, and something that could be converted if we ran out of the first one and I had to dump marshmallows on it and serve even more to the crowd.  It was not necessary, but they both turned out good and everyone was filled with good food.


Traditional Sweet Potato Casserole

Top this lightened version of the classic sweet potato casserole with both marshmallows and toasted pecans. (For more classic dishes, visit our sweet potato recipes collection.)

Yield:  16 servings

2 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans, divided
Cooking spray
2 cups miniature marshmallows

Preheat oven to 375°.
Place the sweet potatoes in a Dutch oven, and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes or until very tender. Drain; cool slightly.
Place potatoes in a large bowl. Add sugar and next 3 ingredients (through vanilla). Mash sweet potato mixture with a potato masher. Fold in 1/4 cup pecans. Scrape potato mixture into an even layer in an 11 x 7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup pecans; top with marshmallows. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes or until golden.


CALORIES 186 (27% from fat); FAT 5.5g (sat 2g,mono 2.3g,poly 0.9g); IRON 0.7mg; CHOLESTEROL 8mg; CALCIUM 23mg; CARBOHYDRATE 33.1g; SODIUM 272mg; PROTEIN 1.6g; FIBER 2.5g

Cooking Light, NOVEMBER 2007


Brown Sugar-Glazed Sweet Potato Wedges


Make this tasty brown sugar-glazed sweet potato side dish up to two days ahead, and store, covered, in the refrigerator. Reheat at 350°, covered, for 20 minutes or until heated through; if desired, finish the dish under the broiler to recrisp the edges of the sweet potato.

Yield:  12 servings (serving size: 2/3 cup)

1/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
4 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled, cut in half crosswise, and cut into 1/2-inch wedges
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 400°.
Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add sugar, water, salt, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon; bring to a simmer. Cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Discard cinnamon stick. Combine sugar mixture and potato wedges in a large bowl; toss well to coat. Arrange potato mixture on a large jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 40 minutes or until tender, stirring after 20 minutes.


CALORIES 182 (19% from fat); FAT 3.9g (sat 2.4g,mono 1.1g,poly 0.2g); IRON 0.8mg; CHOLESTEROL 10mg; CALCIUM 44mg; CARBOHYDRATE 36.1g; SODIUM 211mg; PROTEIN 1.7g; FIBER 3g

Cooking Light, NOVEMBER 2004

 

We then traveled to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family.  My sister this year has a brand new house, and she hosted the crowd at her place.  It was festive and fun with everyone there.

There was now room to set up another Norman Rockwell type photo, so we stood by the fireplace for this one.  The kids had their own table, so only one of them joined us in this photo.  He does not like to leave his mothers side.  

This is the salad I made for this Thanksgiving dinner.  My sister already had the yams taken care of.  She cooks them with butter, and sprinkles them with cinnamon, hmmmm yummy.

Quinoa Salad Recipe with Pears, Baby Spinach and Chick Peas in a Maple Vinaigrette

Quinoa adds vegan protein and heft to simple green salads- perfect for lunch or a light supper. Use pears or apples in this recipe- either one will work.

First you'll need to make the quinoa:

1 cup organic quinoa
2 cups water

Sea salt

Place the quinoa in a saucepan or a rice cooker. Add 2 cups fresh water, and a pinch of sea salt. Cover and cook on a low simmer until all the water is evaporated and the quinoa is tender- roughly 20 minutes. Fluff with a fork and dump it into a large salad bowl.

For the salad you'll need:

2 good handfuls of organic baby spinach leaves, washed, drained
1 large ripe pear, washed, stemmed and cored, cut into pieces (I've also used craisins)
1/2 cup chilled chick peas, rinsed, drained
2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
A handful of pecans, pan toasted and salted to taste

For the Maple Vinaigrette Dressing:

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons golden balsamic vinegar (I've used Rice vinegar once & White Balsamic both were good)
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

Whisk together.

Add the baby spinach, pear, chick peas, and chopped parsley to the quinoa and fluff. Pour on the vinaigrette and toss gently to coat. Season to taste with sea salt and ground pepper.

Just before serving, add the toasted pecans and lightly combine.

Makes four main course servings, six side dish servings.

This recipe was found on the GlutenFreeGoddess.com, her pictures are amazing as well.  But this side dish has just become a favorite of mine.  I have made it again for dinner with cranberries instead of pear, since I did not have pears.  This is very very good, and versatile.  I tried it because it incorporated so many things that are PCOS friendly, and I was delighted to see that it was well received at the dinner.  My husband was the only one that only liked it, but was not wanting seconds, everyone else wanted more.

Instead of doing a full turkey, we do the turkey breasts at our second Thanksgiving.  These were delicious!

My step-mother brought a delicious cranberry salad.  This is very easy. Toss cranberries into a blender, an orange, and sweeten to taste.  She used some sugar, last year we used some stevia, use what ever sweetener you prefer, just blend it all together.

Here are the rest of the kids, enjoying their meal, although I did seem to be interrupting their conversation.

We also brought our dogs, and introduced them to my sisters new puppy.   Some moments were good, others were not.  Little patch was all puppy, and wanted to play all the time.  Mandy was rather feisty with him, poor thing.  They did do much better later on in our visit, but there was a bit of an adjustment period.  Bear and Mandy are quite protective of anyone else getting attention from us, or touching us, or people wrestling, or pretty much anything to do with us. So there was barking and following us around everywhere.

Here is Patch, I was unable to get one of all the dogs together.  They were quite mobile and so were the kids.  There are many other things to share about the trip, and I will be posting one about our journey there, but I will post these in intervals.