Can't Miss One Day

Here it is, 10:04pm on Saturday night. Normally, it wouldn't even occur to me to post anything now, but it is NaBloPoMo...how many days left? So, while I should be preparing for my Sunday School lesson tomorrow, I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what to post for today.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about how our morning started with assisting at a house down the street that had caught on fire. But that will take a little more time. For now, you must be satisfied with hearing about my new favorite Thanksgiving meal side dish: Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Bourbon and Maple. I made it tonight. We went to our friends for a post Thanksgiving dinner. (We made a Thanksgiving meal tonight because we didn't get to cook one and I was missing the leftovers.) We split the meal between 3 couples. I was in charge of the yams, the salad, the rolls and the apple crisp. All were good, but the Mashed Sweet Potatoes were the best.

I'd give you the recipe, but I sort of combined a few, then came up with the final product based on constant taste testing. I can tell you what was in it...just not all the amounts.

4 yams
bourbon (probably 1/4 to 1/2 cup)
maple syrup (about the same amount as the bourbon
1/2 cup whole milk (would have used cream if I had it)
toasted pecans pieces on top

I mashed the yams (after boiling them) in a potato ricer. (Loved the ricer, BTW. I usually mash my potatoes in a Kitchen Aid, but Shauna had the ricer and I wanted to try it. Super easy and it produced nice fluffy potatoes. It's one of my new favorite kitchen gadgets. I must put it on my Christmas list.)

After mashing, I added the liquids, stirred, tasted, added some more, stirred again, etc., until it tasted pretty good. Then I stuck them in the oven in a casserole dish covered with foil. They ended up being in there on 350 for about 30 minutes, but only because we were waiting on some other guests, and the oven was FULL of stuff, so the 350 wasn't really 350. I covered them in pecans right before serving.

Fabulous, even if I do say so myself.

Oh, and I ate brussel sprouts for the first time ever tonight. I won't ever make them for myself, but they were tolerable. I felt like a right grown-up, trying something new and all.