Recipes

For Thanksgiving dinner I went to the house of a dance friend's grandmother. I brought two dishes, both of which were huge hits. Below are the recipes, as close as I can get, as the way I cook is to basically throw stuff together without measuring.

Candied Yams: People love them, and they're the easiest thing to make.
Ingredients: Yams, butter, brown sugar, mini marshmallows.

You're looking for large yams, the size of a big potato. Peel and chop into bite size pieces. Place 1/2 of them in a deep baking dish (think corning ware)that you have a lid for. 1/2 of the yams should fill the dish halfway.

Melt some butter, about 1 tbsp per yam. Pour 1/2 of it over the yams in the dish. Measure out some brown sugar again about 1tbsp per yam. Sprinkle 1/2 of it over the yams in the dish. Add the rest of the yams, pour the butter on them and then sprinkle the remainder of the brown sugar on them.

Cover and bake in the oven at 350 until the yams are soft. This will take about 30 minutes. Remove the lid and sprinkle with mini marshmallows until covered. Continue to bake until the marshmallows have turned a golden brown.

That's it. This is a dish that is just crying out for customization. For a darker flavor season with black pepper. Cloves would probably work really well. Some day I'm going to trade out some of the brown sugar for molasses.

Cranberry Apple Pie
Ingredients:Pie crust (make your favorite or buy one), 4-5 baking apples, 8oz whole cranberries, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, brown sugar, butter, cornstarch

Make a crust, stick it in a pie pan. Peel and core 4-5 medium sized apples, then slice into 1/4in thick wedges. I used a mix of granny smith and braeburn. Toss with some cinnamon and nutmeg. I probably used about 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg.

For the cranberries, I bought a 12oz package of whole cranberries. Dump about 2/3 of them into a saucepan on low heat and pour in about 1/3 cup sugar and 1tbs cornstarch. Heat gently and stir. The berries will give off a little juice and the sugar may clump into hard balls. Don't worry about it. Heat slowly until the first of the berries start to split, then take them off the heat.

Layer 1/2 the apples in the pie pan on top of the crust, then sprinkle 1/2 the berries and sugar mix over the top. Then layer with the rest of the apples and sprinkle the remainder of the berries over the top. The filling should be above the top of the pie pan, as it will bake down.

For the topping, I used a basic crumb topping. An oatmeal based one would also work well. 1/2c flour, 1/4c sugar, 1/4c brown sugar, 3/4tsp cinnamon, 1/4c butter. Cut together using a pastry blender or two knives until it looks like course crumbs. Sprinkle over the pie, completely covering the filling.

Place in a 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, until the mixture is bubbling. You may want to cover the edges of your pie with aluminum foil to prevent over browning.

The pie is tart, but the topping adds enough sweetness so that you get sweet and tart all in the same bite.