Sweet Potato Casserole

I can’t have dairy, so I bake them up then peel them and mash them up with some coconut oil, honey and cinnamon! My son and I love to eat them that way all the time, at least once a week. Another favorite way is to cube them and fry them up in coconut oil and add some ground breakfast sausage, real maple syrup and cinnamon. Both are so yummy and my son can’t stop eating them.

We don’t do the marshmallow sweet potatoes. We do candied sweet potatoes. You cook the peeled and quartered sweet potatoes in brown sugar and butter on the stovetop in a cast iron frypan on low heat for a long time. The other non thanksgiving way we eat sweet potatoes is like a baked potato and topped with butter and cinnamon sugar. I recently cubed and roasted sweet potatoes in coconut oil and butter and topped with some sea salt and I was surprised at how yummy it was! We are sugar fiends but we are slowly switching over to healthier and cleaner eating. And discovering I need to eat GF has helped push us along toward Paleo/Primal stuff. It is so much to learn and figure out. But we are trying!

Actually, I prefer roasted sweet potatoes.  I take the turkey out of the oven and let it rest in a foil jacket, and crank the heat in the oven up to 425.   I have already prepared the sweet potatoes — I take chunks of peeled raw sweet potatoes and chunks of onion and put them in a big zip lock plastic bag.  I add olive oil, salt, pepper and herbs (I like Bragg’s Organic Sprinkle) and smush the bag around until everything is evenly incorporated.  I also have prepared a large baking pan by covering the bottom with parchment paper.  I pour the coated sweet potatoes and onions into the parchment covered pan and roast them while the turkey is resting.  The turkey is juicier after it rests, and if – by the time it is cut and out on the platter – the meat is slightly above room temperature it doesn’t matter – as long as the gravy is nice and hot.  The sweet potatoes and onions take around 30 minutes or more to roast – I don’t keep track of the time, I just poke a fork in a sweet potato chunk to make sure it is done.  This is an awesome, healthy sweet potato side dish!

I prefer my sweet potatoes more plain, but my Mom and older sister’s family can’t do Thankgiving without them topped with marshmallows.  Will send them this recipe and see if it’s an acceptable compromise.  Sounds great!  

Wow, I am going to do this for my husband’s large family. I am volunteering to make most of the food, since that’s the only way I can ensure it will be gluten free and mostly paleo.

I’m excited to try this. Since my family’s eating habits have changed over the last year, the traditional marshmallow version ( which we’ve done in the past) will be way too sweet ( among other negatives). It looks to be delicious!