ORANGE PECAN SWEET POTATOES

I made this recipe before for Thanksgiving, but I did it in the slow cooker because of limited oven space. They were okay, but not anything like baking them in the oven or cooking on a grill as our son Patrick did this year for Thanksgiving. I could have eaten the whole pan and skipped dessert! They taste as good as any dessert!

I started by cooking the sweet potatoes in my Instant Pot. I actually shared that process on Monday. If you didn't see it, you can check it out HERE.

I baked three pounds of sweet potatoes in my IP, pulled the peeling off, and then quartered them. A few quarters I cut again because some of the sweet potatoes were much bigger than some of the others. 

You can bake the mixture in a 9 x 13 - inch pan in the oven if you prefer. Patrick has two BBQ grills. He cooked the turkey on one of them. On the other one, he cooked my cornbread dressing and these candied sweet potatoes. I had both mixtures in iron skillets because he said the grill might discolor glass baking dishes, etc. I was thinking the temperature was supposed to be at 375 degrees F. My dressing needed to cook at 400 degrees F. He couldn't get the temperature past 360 degrees F so we just cooked them a little longer. Actually the recipe just called for 350 degrees F, but it worked out great.

Oh, I omitted the pecans because some of the family doesn't like nuts in dishes. They would have tasted good.

ORANGE PECAN SWEET POTATOES

3     lbs sweet potatoes, cooked, peeled, and chunked/quartered

1/2  cup chopped pecans

1     cup brown sugar

2     tablespoons corn starch

1     cup orange juice

2     tablespoons butter

1     teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 9 x 13 - inch baking dish with cooking spray. (I used a large, 9 to 10 - inch iron skillet.)

Prepare the potatoes: My pictures... cooking in IP,

peeling (so easy to pull off - the potatoes are a little warm...)

all done...

quartering them 

Add sweet potatoes and pecans, if you are using them.

Combine the brown sugar and corn starch in a small saucepan.

Gradually add the orange juice,

whisking to blend. Cook over high heat, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil.

reduce heat and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove from heat,

add butter and vanilla.

Pour evenly over the sweet potatoes.

Bake in oven for 45 minutes, until edges are browned and bubbly. (Patrick cooked them on his grill at 360 degrees F for about 45 minutes. Cornbread dressing also cooking.)

Serve and enjoy!

Here is the bacon-covered turkey (getting ready) cooking.

At some point he removes the turkey from the grill to remove the bacon...

 

and then back to the grill to finish cooking and browning. Just before Patrick carves it all up.

Oh! and the Cornbread Dressing...

It was a good Thanksgiving for our small family.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING MENU

This Thanksgiving found my husband and me celebrating alone. We had plans to go see our newest grandson (for the first time) and the rest of the family, but those plans got changed.  My husband said we could go out to eat, but I hated to do that when I could easily cook something for us.  I also knew I would get more food than I could eat....my stomach has shrunk with my recent ordeal with a bacterial intestinal infection.

So I decided to make my Sweet Potato Souffle (a recipe I got from friends (Joyce and Stephan) when we first moved to Ventura, CA in the late 80s.  They were from AL and Stephan's family cook made it when he was growing up.) and the dressing recipe that I got from a teacher at Westwood Elementary School in Springdale, AR when I taught there in the late 70s and early 80s. (I didn't write her name down on the recipe card.)

In place of a turkey I decided to buy a whole chicken and just cook it in the crock pot.  (That would be just about the right amount of meat for us for a couple of days.) Usually when I cook a chicken in the crock pot I just sprinkle on some seasonings and about 1/2 cup of water.  This time I decided to pour a can of cream of chicken soup over it.  (I had the can leftover from when I mixed up the dressing.  I didn't realize until I opened the cans -- instead of one can of cream of mushroom soup and one can of cream of chicken soup, I had bought two cans of cream of chicken.  And of course I didn't realize it until I opened both cans.)  I then cooked the chicken for 5 hours on high.  It was really good and the "gravy" was good over the dressing. 

DRESSING

1     14-oz pkg Pepperidge Farm Herb Stuffing mix
1      cup margarine
1      cup chopped celery
1      cup diced onion
5      eggs
1      pan of cornbread
1      can cream of chicken soup
1      can cream of mushroom soup (can substitute cream of celery if you don't like the mushrooms)
3      cans of chicken broth (14 - 16 oz cans)


Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Saute the celery and onion in 2 sticks of melted margarine until tender over low-medium heat.

Crumble the pan of cornbread and mix with the stuffing mix in a BIG bowl. (Cornbread can be made the day before if you like.)
You can find my recipe for the best cornbread in the world HERE.

Add the celery and onions

Combine the eggs and soups in a smaller bowl.  I added a little of the broth to "rinse" out the soup cans.

Add to the stuffing mixture 

and stir

If mixture is too thick, just add a little more broth.

Since it was just the two of us, I cooked a small amount in my 7.5 inch iron skillet that I sprayed with cooking spray.  

I baked it for about 20 minutes.











You could bake it in a 9 x 13 - inch sprayed pan for about 45 - 60 minutes or til edges are brown and top is golden brown and set in center.  You can also check with a toothpick in the center.

Here is a tip that you might find helpful.  I cook most of the dressing in my shallow muffin tin.  

I checked the center with a toothpick after 15 minutes and they were done.

After they had cooled, I removed them from the muffin tin and placed them on a cookie sheet to place in the freezer to quick freeze.

About an hour later, I removed the pan from the freezer and wrapped each one individually with plastic wrap.

Then I placed them in a gallon freezer bag and returned them to the freezer.









When my husband wants one or two to eat, he simply takes them out of the bag, places them in the microwave on defrost and then heats til hot.  (He doesn't remember the length of time for each process.)

The mixture made the one 7-1/2 inch pan and 29 muffins.  The last pan only had 5 of the cups filled.  I filled the empty cups with a little water so the filled ones would cook evenly.

Here is a picture of the sweet potato souffle I made.  I featured it last year HERE.

I made us the pumpkin streusel custard I featured a couple of days ago for dessert.  It whips up so quickly and tastes so-o-o-o good. Missed it?  Check it out 
HERE,

INSTANT POT 101: SWEET POTATOES

 Wayne and I love sweet potatoes! I don't know of a way we won't eat them. His favorite way (and maybe mine, too) is using a recipe (Sweet Potato Souffle)we were given from friends in CA, Joyce and Stephen. They served it to us when we shared a Thanksgiving dinner with them and a few other friends. Since then it has been included in our Thanksgiving menu 90% of the time. We also just love them plain, baked, with butter. 

The last couple of years we have enjoyed Thanksgiving with our younger son Patrick and his family. I usually bring the cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, and a pecan pie. Since I am a recent owner of an Instant Pot, I wanted to cook the sweet potatoes in it.

I belong to a group on Facebook for Instant Pot Beginners. Fortunately there are members who are not newbies who help to give good advice when questions are asked. I read a number of ways that people were suggesting how to cook them, but chose one person and "talked" back and forth to her to know specially what to do. Saying that, you may have your own way of cooking sweet potatoes in the IP. I am sharing what I did and know that it worked.

Sorry I don't remember her name so I will call her Jane. Jane cooked her potatoes for 50 minutes but she was making a sweet potato pie and wanted to make sure they were soft. I told her I was going to "candy" mine so she suggested I cook them for 25 minutes. Personally, they were soft enough after 25 minutes plus release time to make a pie, so depending on what you plan to do with the sweet potatoes after they cook, you might try 20 minutes. They did hold up even though they were totally done for me to quarter them and cook them with a glaze. 

I also cooked 3 lbs of sweet potatoes and you might not want to cook that many. According to my information for my IP, you don't cook them a longer or shorter cooking time due to the amount of potatoes you are using.

COOKING SWEET POTATOES IN THE IP

    

Sweet potatoes (I had 3 lbs - about 6 or 7 sweet potatoes. but for any amount)

1-1/2     cups chicken broth 

Wash the sweet potatoes. Pour the broth in the inner pot. Using the metal rack that comes with the IP, place potatoes on it, and place down in the inner pot.

Cover with lid.

Press the Pressure Cooker button (some pots it is the manual button).

Add minutes to timer to show 25 minutes.

Timer will reset to ON. It will take about 10 minutes for the pressure to build.

Then the timer will show 25 minutes again and potatoes will start cooking.

Add the end of the 25 minutes (timer will show 0:00 and then start counting up a minute at a time).

Allow the IP to Natural Release for 10 minutes. (In other words, do nothing - I got busy and didn't check it for 11 minutes.) Then do a Quick Release, (press vent lever/button on top of lid).

It took about 3 minutes for all of the steam to vent. (The Float Valve - the silver button will be down.) Press Cancel (to stop the timer).

Open lid,

place lid in handle opening,

and remove potatoes in rack. 

I then placed the cooked potatoes on a cookie sheet to

pull the pealing off. You can do whatever you wish with the cooked potato now. If you were just serving them as baked sweet potatoes, you could just put them on a platter or individual plates peeling and all.

If you would like to see the recipe I used to make Candied Sweet Potatoes, check it out HERE. Here is a picture of what the dish looked like. Oh My Gosh! They were so good!