Sweet Potatoes

Happy Thanksgiving! What a time for delicious food. I helped out this year by making two pumpkin pies, an apple pie and sweet potatoes (Bryan made rolls). I got both pies off of the internet but the sweet potatoes are something my mom has made for every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner that I can remember (among a few other dishes). I love these sweet potatoes. It's really the brown sugar topping that makes it. After it was done cooking and I took it out of the oven, I leaned down and took in the aroma. Immediately it felt familiar and warm, accompanied by a rush of family memories. Anyway, onto actually making it. See below for full recipe. Here's what you'll need:

 This includes the entire recipe, filling and topping. We'll start by making the filling.

 The recipe calls for 3-4 cups of mashed yams or sweet potatoes (either is fine). What is really the difference anyway? I found that two 29 oz cans worked perfectly.

 The first thing you'll want to do is pour the yams/sweet potatoes in a larger saucepan with all the liquid. Bring the contents to a boil and then use a strainer or the lid of the saucepan to drain off the liquid and then put it in a bowl.

 The yams/sweet potatoes are pretty much covered by the rest of the ingredients here. Place all filling ingredients in a bowl to be mixed.

 Mix it up! You can use a hand mixer-- I used my KitchenAid. Maybe this picture wasn't necessary but I thought it looked pretty cool.

Place the filling in a 9x13" casserole dish and move on to the topping.

Chop your pecans..

.Mix all the ingredients together. It might be useful to mix all the dry ingredients first and then add the butter but I didn't and it turned out great!

Here is the result.

Crumble onto the filling and then bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Ah, delicious end result.

Ingredients:

Filling:
3-4 C. mashed yams or sweet potatoes
1/4 C. milk
2 eggs
1 C. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C. butter

Topping:
1 C. pecans, chopped
1 C. brown sugar
1/2 C. butter
1/2 C. flour

1. Pour yams/sweet potatoes into a saucepan with liquid and bring to a boil. Drain off liquid.
2. Mix yams/sweet potatoes, milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla and butter together with an electric mixer.
3. Place filling in 9x13" casserole dish.
4. In a small to medium bowl, mix pecans, flour, butter and brown sugar.
5. Crumble topping onto filling.
6. Cook at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.