There's cooking to be done today. We'll be attending a Thanksgiving dinner around noon, and another around 5. I am taking dishes to both. Sweet potato casserole and spinach dip to my brother's house, and sweet potato dumplings and pecan casserole to my son's house.
The sweet potatoes are in the oven now.
Historically, I boiled the sweet potatoes. I never, ever drop a sweet potato into a pot of water that I don't think about Nanny and The Husband's grandmother, Mama J. (She was a card.)
The three of us were sitting at the kitchen table, discussing a recipe for sweet potato pie. I was probably 30 years old hadn't had a lot of experience cooking from scratch. I commented that the only problem with sweet potatoes was that they were so hard to peel. Mama J said, "Boil 'em, first."
It was like the heaven's opened up. I heard angels singing.
Evidently, Nanny had that same experience, for she exclaimed, "MAMA J! You could have told me that THIRTY YEARS AGO!"
Cracked me up.
The angels sang for me again this morning as I was washing sweet potatoes, preparing to boil them.
My biggest pan is in the refrigerator, half full of chicken noodle soup. As I was taking a bowl out of the cabinet, planning to transfer the soup to the bowl so that I could use the pan for the sweet potatoes, it occurred to me that I could BAKE them instead of boiling them.
I hope there is not some down-side to baking vs. boiling that I have not considered. I couldn't think of any, except a possible difference in texture. We'll see.
This year, for the first time, I bought bagged sweet potatoes instead of loose ones. It was a mistake. Whereas I can choose loose potatoes of similar size, the bagged potatoes came in a variety of sizes. The little ones will be done far earlier than the big ones. I've set a timer to remind me to check them early.
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Yesterday, I spent most of the day fooling with Christmas cards. During the past year, my watercolor practice produced a stack of 4" x 6" mini-paintings, just the right size for attaching to 5" x 7" greeting cards. Yesterday, I gathered up the best of the Christmas-themed ones, stuck them to cards, and addressed them to friends and relatives. This morning, I found a few more. They'll have to wait until Friday.
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