Roasted Sweet Marmalade Potato Casserole

So I'm totally posting a Thanksgiving recipe a whole week late.  Yeah, I'm that girl.

But guess what?  I made my very recipe up, again!  I offered to make sweet potato something for the Thanksgiving party I went to this year.  I have never, ever, been a fan of sweet potatoes [just like I'm not a fan of stuffing either], so I decided to take on the challenge to see if I could create a sweet potato dish that I actually liked.

Fate would have it that I would discover the wonder of the roasted vegetable.  It all started with me roasting apples and sweet potatoes for Kiddo, so I could then dice them up as finger food.  Being the good parent that I am, I try everything that I put in her mouth.  Turns out, roasted sweet potatoes are kind of addicting.  Something happens when you cover a sweet potato in canola oil and roast it - it turns into candy.  Don't believe me?   Then try this recipe out.

Roasted  Marmalade Sweet Potato Casserole

Whew, what a name!  I decided to add orange marmalade to the recipe for two reasons - one, everybody else's recipes put citrus in their sweet potato casserole, so I figured I should join in.  Two, we had a whole jar of the stuff left over from a previous dinner. Score.

Time: 1 hour [to be on the safe side]
Bakes: 425 degrees fahrenheit
Makes: a 9x13 pan

Ingredients

• 8 sweet potatoes
• Oil, for drizzle
• 3/4 cup half & half
• 1/2 cup orange marmalade
• 1 stick [8 tbs] butter
• 4 tsp cinnamon
• Marshmallows or walnuts [or both!] for topping

Directions

1. Slice your sweet potatoes into 1/2 slices.
2. Next, put them in a large bowl and pour a little bit of oil in.  Toss potatoes until coated.
3. Arrange onto a baking sheet in a single layer, and roast at 425 degrees for 15 minutes [or until soft, but not burnt].
4. Put your roasted potatoes back into your bowl and blend until mashed thoroughly.
5. Add the half & half, marmalade, butter, and cinnamon into the bowl.  Blend again until all the ingredients are mixed together.  [At this point, you can take a break and wait until you're about ready to serve. The next part will only take a few minutes]
6. Place sweet potato mixture into a 9x13 pan. Cover with either marshmallow or walnut toppings.
7.  Broil until marshmallows are browned/walnuts are toasted. 

The scoop on marshmallows - yes, they are gluten-free. From what I understand, certain brands make their 'mallows in dedicated gluten-free facilities, but regardless, they all should not have any wheat ingredients in them.  If you're concerned about any traces, check with the particular brand to be on the safe side.

picture time!

roasted sweet potatoes...yum.

blend them up, or let your hubby do it [you didn't thinkI wore giant watches, did you?]

slather into a pan

toppings!

Remember when I said that roasted sweet potatoes are like candy?  This casserole is like candy mixed with marmalade [candy] then topped with marshmallows [more candy].

Now I understand why I like it.

What's your favorite Thanksgiving menu item?  Honestly, its not Thanksgiving without fresh baked rolls for me.  I have childhood memories of hoarding 5 or 6 of them during mealtime...

Thankful 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm kind of excited because this is Adelle's first Thanksgiving.  I have these fantastic visions of her eating her first bites of turkey and potatoes this afternoon and getting adorable pictures of it all, but who knows how the day is actually going to go!

Remember my post a couple months ago about how being thankful helps me become more content?  Well, I think I need to share some of my thankfulness with you guys, simply so I can fight this dicontentment bug that's been crepping back into my thoughts over the last week.

Ten Things I am Thankful for This Thanksgiving

1. I am thankful for my daughter - I have a healthy, happy little girl who sleeps on her own and gives me the best kisses.  I couldn't ask for anything more.

2. My husband and I are learning how to continue loving each other well through big, life changes and the daily strain of, well, life as we know it. Even though some days are bad, most days are good.  And in general, our relationship is trending in a positive direction :)

3. We have a really good place to live, in a really good neighborhood.  I finally met our neighbors this week [I'll give you the whole run down on that story next week!], and I was reminded that this is a really, really good neighborhood to be living in. God truly blessed us when we made the decision to live here without really knowing much about this place.

4. The scorpions are hibernating now.  No more sightings for a few weeks.  Not too excited that they're probably sleeping in our walls [yuck] but at least I can breathe a sigh of relief for the next couple months.

5. I am thankful for my new friends here in Phoenix who know how to love one another.

6. I am thankful for Cesar Milan - without his TV show, our dogs would be out of control!

7. I am thankful that Adelle knows how to go to sleep on her own.

8. I am thankful that I can't come up with anything I want for Christmas.  That means we have no needs!

9. I am thankful that the mornings are cool, and the afternoons are bearable.  It means I can get out of the house now for walks in the afternoons.

10. I am thankful for the GI Bill.  Without it, we wouldn't be able to be here in Phoenix, living in our house, with neither of us working, and Josh still going to school full-time.

What are you thankful for this year?

Corn Bread Stuffing

Are you excited for Thanksgiving too?  Tons of yummy, free food, a few days off from work slash school, and, if you're close to family, you have an excuse to hang out with them all day :)

However, Thanksgiving meals when you have a food intolerance can be...a bummer, especially when half of the menu is off limits. I will be honest from the beginning, I'm not a huge fan of stuffing.  But I totally realize that there are a lot of people who really, really like it.  Maybe you do? If so, here's a gluten-free stuffing recipe to use this Thursday!  I did a trial run on this stuff a couple weeks ago for church. I got a few compliments on it (good thing, I believe), and I even tried it out myself.  Again, I'm not a big fan of stuffing, but it wasn't bad.

This recipe is based off last Thursday's corn bread recipe I shared with you.  It will be your base, with some typical but still-yummy veggies and seasonings to make it all stuffing-like.

Corn Bread Stuffing (From Taste of Home Cookbook)

Time: 25 min prep, 40 min bake
Bake: 325 degrees
Makes: 9 cups

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups chopped celery
• 1 1/4 cups chopped onions
• 2 and 8 tablespoons butter
• 1 9x9 pan of gluten-free corn bread
• 4 teaspoons rubbed sage
• 4 teaspoons poultry seasoning
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 1/3 cups chicken broth

Directions

1. In a large skillet, saute celery and onion in 2 tablespoons of butter until tender. Then transfer to a large bowl.

2. Break corn bread apart into small pieces.  Crumbling is okay, but the goal is to have more chunks than crumbles when you're done.

3. In bowl, add corn bread, sage and poultry seasoning.

4. Combine eggs, 8 tablespoons of melted butter, and chicken broth together. Then add it to corn bread mixture, stirring gently so as not to break apart the corn bread too much.

5. Grease a 9x13 baking dish, and transfer your stuffing into the dish.

6. Cover and bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.

7. Uncover, then bake for 10 more minutes [or until thermometer reads 165 degrees] and stuffing is lightly browned.

you can already tell, this is so not going to be healthy.

cutting corn bread

cutting more corn bread

the stuffing pre-bake

foil is so shiny...

mmmm, stuffing.

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving break planned this week!

Tennessee Corn Bread

The mornings are chilly, the holidays are coming; I think there's no better comfort food than corn bread.

I originally found this recipe while on the quest for a gluten-free stuffing last Thanksgiving.  What happened was after hours of scouring everything for a stuffing that didn't use bread, I ran across a recipe that used corn bread instead.  Corn isn't wheat, right?  Perfect. Now I just need a corn bread recipe.

Turns out, a lot of corn bread recipes use flour anyway.  Except this one!

Now for the disclaimer: while cornmeal in and of itself has no gluten in it, oftentimes it is processed in a plant that process wheat.  Know your gluten-intolerance limits.  If you can't handle wheat contamination of any kind, then you will want to get cornmeal that is labelled gluten-free and states on the box or bag that it was processed in a wheat-free facility.

Okay, now on to the good stuff!

Tennessee Corn Bread (From Taste of Home
Cookbook)

Time: 30 minutes
Oven: 425 degrees
Makes: a 9x9 pan or 9 in spring form pan

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise [the cookbook notes that reduced-fat or fat-free mayo is not
• recommended]
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cups yellow cornmeal [again, know what your intolerance can handle, and choose
• your cornmeal brand accordingly]
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In large mixing bowl, beat together eggs, mayo, buttermilk, and oil until smooth.
2. Add cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt into bowl, and stir together until just combined.
3. Grease you 9x9 pan or 9 in spring form, and add batter.
4. Bake at 425 degrees for 18-20 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

I'm starting to fall in love with my spring form pan.  It can bake anything into a beautiful circle - now my corn bread can be both yummy and visually appealing.

pour some honey on it...

eat it with some soup.

We had it with some Vegetable Lime Chickpea Chili that I found over at Two Peas and Their Pod. It's a pretty delicious vegetarian chili to combat the winter chills or some stuffy noses.

Curious about how our weekend went?  Ha ha, I'm going to tell you anyway.  Well, Dellie slept...okay.  She had trouble going to sleep and woke up a few times during both nights, but at least she wasn't alone.  Our friends' kiddos had a pretty rough go at it too.  But no one died, and we came back feeling like we learned a lot from the conference.  So success?  I suppose so when you've got a 10 month old.

See you Monday!  I'll be posting my corn bread stuffing recipe, just in time for Thanksgiving!

Tuscan Stew

Over the last week, a very exciting new development has occurred in our household - Dellie is mobile!  She can both crawl and cruise around tables and chairs like a pro.  Its been really exciting to see her jump in physical ability literally overnight.  The only problem is that night thing - my child now refuses to sleep.  I don't know if she is just so thrilled to be able to move around or what, but it has made afternoons and evenings a little bit more stressful [when I say that, I actually mean a lot more stressful].  I'm honestly just pinning my hopes that her sudden disinterest in sleep is just a side effect of her new skills, and she will go back to her normal sleep routine within a few days or so.

Okay, actually, I'm really hoping it will go away by tomorrow night.  We're going on a church retreat this weekend. Turns out we will be sharing a room with another family who has two kids of their own.  While a not-sleeping child is stressful no matter what, it will be exponentially stressful if we're trying to get her to sleep in the room with two other poor children who actually know how to take naps.  Sigh... if you get the chance, send some prayers our way.

On a more happy note, I am going to share with you a recipe that I think I can safely say I actually made up on my own!  I originally did start with a recipe, but realized that I had bought all the wrong ingredients for it.  How I did that, I don't know.  So I just made up my own thing with what I did have. The result is my very own Tuscan Stew.

Tuscan Stew

Time: 30 minutes
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 cups diced carrots
• 2 sticks of celery, diced
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 2 cans [28 oz in total] chicken broth
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 can [15 oz] pinto, white kidney, or great northern beans
• 1 can [15 oz] garbanzo beans
• 8 oz box of gluten free pasta [I used Ancient Harvest Quinoa pasta], any shape you'd like

Instructions

1. In 4 qt. saucepan, saute onion, carrots, and celery together in olive oil, until onion is tender.

2. Add broth, water, salt and pepper, bring to a boil.

3. Stir in beans and pasta, return to a boil.

4. Reduce heat and let simmer for 15 minutes or until pasta and veggies are tender, stirring every so often.

Things I really like about this recipe is that is is easy to make, and doesn't take too much time.  And even though there isn't any meat directly in it, the beans still keep it really filling.  Lastly, it reheats well for leftovers.

Happy Friday!

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I linked this up on Whatever Wherever Wednesday!

Why I Use Cloth Wipes

I will begin by saying that I totally recognize that there are about a bazillion other blog posts about the wonders of cloth wipes. This post is simply me chiming in to say that I like them too!

I didn't believe any of the praises I read about cloth wipes for months.  I honestly just thought it was a bunch of crazy zealous earth mamas. But enough people were writing about how using cloth wipes was really simple and you could even make them yourself for nothing.  I eventually decided that buying a dozen cloth wipes to test out wasn't going to hurt anyone.

Guess what? Everything people have said about cloth wipes is true.

- They are easy to use. All I have to do is spray a little bit of my wipes solution onto a cloth wipe, use, and then toss the wipe with the diaper.  Before, I would have to try and separate the disposable wipe out from the diaper and throw each into their individual trash can [gross].  Now, it all goes into the same trash can, which all gets washed together.  Easy peasy.

- They are cheap.  The first pack of cloth wipes that I bought cost me $11.  Since then, I have just made cloth wipes with leftover flannel my mom gave me.  I have more than I could even possibly need for the same price as a 700-count box of disposable wipes.

- They are environmentally friendly. In all honesty, I'm not a particularly earth-friendly person. A lot of times I feel like recycling is just too complicated.  I mean, seriously, who can actually keep track of what those numbers actually stand for? But using cloth wipes is really, truly, a straight-forward, visibly environmental thing that I can do.  I don't create waste with all those disposable wipes, and I don't have to add wash time or detergent to my load of cloth diaper laundry. I actually get a little proud of myself knowing that in this silly little way, I am helping reduce trash by using cloth wipes.

Do you use cloth wipes?  What do you like about them?