We always include sweet potatoes with our Thanksgiving dinner and this year was no exception. However, we did have a discussion about why we include sweet potatoes when they are the least favorite of all our Thanksgiving dishes. I'm not sure why except we always had them growing up. Back then, our basic sweet potato dish was the one with mini marshmallows sprinkled on top. I'm trying to avoid sugar now and eat more healthful so I decided to try this new recipe from Hannah Freese, RD that she included in her Thanksgiving recipes and I'm glad I did because everyone loved it! All of my other Thanksgiving dishes were our old traditional ones. It was Nick's first Thanksgiving back in the U.S. after living in Japan for seven years and so I couldn't change things up too much this year. I had to make all the favorites. Nick savored every bite, too. He was still eating long after we all had left the table.
This sweet potato recipe passed the taste test - twice. Maybe sweet potatoes won't be the least favorite of all our Thanksgiving dishes after this year. It passed the taste test twice because we had TWO Thanksgivings. We quarantined for 14 days prior to Thanksgiving so we could enjoy being inside and sitting around the table for a meal with people outside our household. The only people I knew who could do that were my sister and her husband who are also retired so there were only four of us for Thanksgiving this year.
The next day is when Nick and Lauren and the grandkids all came over. Because of the surge in the coronavirus right now, we were outside a lot, left the French doors open out to the deck the whole time, had the ceiling fan running for good air ventilation, we all wore masks except when eating, we put two board extensions in the table so we were all spaced far apart and had our own serving dishes so we weren't touching others' utensils.
Despite all that, it was actually a very fun time.
Since Nick and Lauren both go into work at their jobs, they could not quarantine so I told them that they could come over on Friday after Thanksgiving and eat the leftovers. And we had A LOT of leftovers. My sister and I made a point of making a lot of food for Thanksgiving so there would be a lot left for them on Friday. Our turkey was magnificent this year, the best one ever.
We brined it the day before using my brine recipe and then Bruce cooked it on the Traeger. He smoked it for three hours and then turned up the temperature to 350 degrees F. and cooked it a couple more hours. It was the best turkey yet. I also stuffed it with my stuffing recipe which also turned out superb. For whatever reason, the food was amazing this year. Even the mashed potatoes and gravy were amazing. I think brining the turkey makes for the best turkey juice for making the gravy. I also added the water from cooking the turkey necks and giblets to thin the gravy after using a roux of flour and water. It's your basic gravy recipe but this one was scrumptious! I also chopped up the turkey heart, liver and giblets to add to the gravy. Everyone remarked how good the gravy was. If the gravy is a success, then your whole Thanksgiving meal is a success. If you're like us, you pretty much put gravy on everything.
We also had our traditional Hernon green gelatin salad which was an extra good batch this year. This is a recipe circa late 1960's. My aunt use to make it for holidays when I was growing up. (Our family name was Hernon.) Today, it is a must-have on Thanksgiving.
And don't forget the rolls. Since I spend all my time making everything from scratch, the rolls get the short end of the stick. I use Rhodes frozen dough for my rolls and everybody loves them, especially the kids and they taste just like homemade.
This year, my sister made the pies and she made five pies so we'd have lots leftover for Friday. Wasn't that nice of her?
We had two pumpkin pies, one pecan pie, one pecan/chocolate pie and one apple/cranberry pie. I'm not sure which was the favorite but I think it might have been the pecan/chocolate pie. It's basically a pecan pie with a layer of tiny chocolate chips in it. I also made my Harvest Apple Sangria for both days which is a family favorite.
I like to have one cocktail for everyone to enjoy and keep it a fall theme because fall sort of gets overlooked with all the hype over Christmas and I love everything "fall". You can see I love setting the table for fall, too. I found these rattan round placemats on Amazon that are a nice golden brown color, perfect for fall. I ordered them along with the galvanized metal chargers that complimented the table runner. The different textures and subtle colors on the table really looked finished and inviting. I used my Watson Kennedy dinner plates since I only have four of them and there were only four people coming to Thanksgiving so perfect for this year. The turkey plates are Tag plates that I got at a sidewalk sale around 15 years ago. The place cards are also by Tag and Lauren did the printing on them using her artistic talents from the last Thanksgiving before Nick and Sachiyo moved to Japan.
Since we got our new furniture, my creative juices have been flowing to come up with new table setting decor. I had lots of time to play around with the table settings this year since we were quarantining for 14 days. I was able to get the Christmas tree up and decorated by Thanksgiving, too. I've decided that I really like doing everything early. It makes for a very relaxed and low stress holiday. Our 4 year-old granddaughter got into the decorating, too, by drawing pictures for everyone that we added to the table settings. She was so proud to contribute.
Lauren did this art project with her on Thanksgiving when she went over to their house to spend the day and then they brought them over on Friday for us. We did cookie decorating on Friday for another little project from a kit I got at Trader Joe's. It is always so fun to entertain the grandkids and play with them. None of us ever tire of it. They are definitely the stars of our family.
All and all, I think it was one of best two days of Thanksgiving we've had. Covid may be disrupting our lives but we are managing to work around it and we're still having wonderful family times. And I even have a new sweet potato recipe to add to future Thanksgiving dinners without wondering why we're even having this food with our meal. It's one of the first Thanksgivings where the leftover sweet potatoes are actually getting eaten, too. I may even make this dish at other times besides Thanksgiving. Is that even allowed or is that breaking a Thanksgiving rule? Whatever. The sweet potatoes are no longer the Thanksgiving underdog.
Makes 6 serving or if serving for Thanksgiving, it would serve more like 10-12 since most people only take a spoonful of sweet potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
1/4 yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp. coconut oil
1/4 cup almond flour
1-1/2 cups coconut milk, full fat
1-1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme, stems removed
3/4 tsp sea salt
2/3 cup pureed pumpkin
optional: add chili flakes or cayenne pepper
1. Peel and slice sweet potatoes to approximately 1/8-inch thick or use a mandolin. Thinly slice the onions and set aside.
2. Grease baking dish with a bit of coconut oil such as 9 X 9 baking dish.
3. Create overlapping layers of the sweet potato slices in the dish and sprinkle the onion between each layer. Continue until all potato and onions are used up.
4. Preheat oven to 400 degree F.
5. In a saucepan, heat coconut oil on medium heat. When melted, add almond flour and whisk for 1 to 2 minutes.
6. Add coconut milk, pumpkin, garlic powder, thyme and salt. Whisk until combined and warm, about 5 minutes.
7. Pour the sauce over the sweet potatoes. Top with any leftover springs of thyme or a dash of dried thyme.
8. Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes, uncovered, until sweet potatoes are cooked through.
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