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Juicy roasted turkey, sweet honey ham, dressings and
stuffing, delicious baked beans, cranberry sauce, creamy
macaroni and cheese, pies, cakes and cookies eaten all
in one day. If that does not make you ready for
Thanksgiving I don’t know what will. As a child I always
wanted to help out in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day.
Today I enjoy helping out with some of the food, and I
encourage you to try to help in the kitchen also.
Thanksgiving dishes do not have to be complicated or
involve lots of ingredients. You do not have to slave
over the stove and the best part is seeing people enjoy
something you had a hand in making.
 This
week I will provide two different but delicious potato
recipes—candied yams and potato salad. Just to clear up
any confusion, candied yams are made with sweet
potatoes. Sweet potatoes are sweet, obviously, and have
a more orange center. Yams are not as sweet and have a
whiter interior. Many people use the terms
interchangeably. To prepare these potatoes, simple syrup
is needed. This is just sugar and water boiled together.
The syrup is what “candies” the potatoes. The general
recipe for a simple syrup is two parts sugar to one part
water.
Candied Yams
4
sweet potatoes
1
cup water
2
cups sugar
1
tsp vanilla extract
2
tbsp butter
Rinse and scrub the sweet potatoes. Boil the potatoes
whole in a large pot of water. Cook until they are fork
tender.
In
a saucepan, bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add in the
sugar and cook until sugar is dissolved, about 10-15
minutes. Remove from heat.
Once potatoes are cooked, let them cool so it will be
easy to peel them. The peeling should come off easily.
Place the peeled potatoes in a baking dish and pour the
syrup on top. Bake in an oven at 350º F.
Once the sugar from the syrup starts to crystallize,
they are ready to take out of the oven. Mix in the
vanilla and place little pads of butter on top.
Potato Salad
5
Idaho potatoes
3
eggs
3
tbsp Miracle Whip mayonnaise
1
tsp yellow mustard
2
tsp sweet relish
2-3
tsp salt
¼
tsp black pepper
2
tsp granulated sugar
Peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes. Rinse them in
cold water. Add the cubes to a large pot of boiling
water.
Place the eggs with the potatoes to boil it all at the
same time. When potatoes are fork tender, remove the pot
from the heat. Drain well.
Peel the eggs and cut them into small pieces.
Add
the mayonnaise, salt and pepper to the potatoes. Mix
together being careful not to mash the mixture. You do
not want it to be the consistency of mashed potatoes;
you still want some chunks to be present.
Add
in the eggs, mustard, relish, and sugar. The sugar is
not to make sweet potato salad; it is to cut the taste
of the other ingredients. You basically season it to
taste. Taste the salad, and if you feel it needs more
salt or any other ingredients, then add it.
Contact Tanisha @ trobi12@lsu.edu
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