Last Minute Tips for Thanksgiving Cooking

Thanksgiving gets Americans together and we do what we do best, eat! I love the traditional tastes of the holiday. Cooking for Thanksgiving is fun but it’s always a challenge to pick out exactly what to make. If you have plans to be a guest tomorrow consider bringing one of my favorite dishes, candied sweet potatoes. The recipe that I’m sharing below is adapted from a Weight Watchers recipe.  This is a low calorie twist on the traditional dish, Candied Yams, just with less butter and sugar. I hope you enjoy!

Low Calorie Candied Sweet Potatoes

• 6 cups sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 tbsp light butter, melted
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup miniature marshmallows

Instructions

1.   Preheat oven to 400°F.

2.   After cutting the sweet potatoes arrange sweet potatoes in an even layer in a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish. Combine maple syrup, butter, brown sugar, lemon juice, nutmeg, salt and mix together in small bowl. Pour the mixture over the sweet potatoes; toss to coat.

Tip: Cutting sweet potatoes when they are raw can be very difficult. I recommend steaming or boiling the sweet potatoes with the skin on first and then peel and cut it. If you do this then reduce the cooking time to only 30 minutes depending on how soft they were when you put them in the oven.

3.   Cover and bake the sweet potatoes for 15 minutes.

4.   Uncover, stir and cook, stirring every 15 minutes, until tender and starting to brown, about 40 minutes more.

5.   Sprinkle marshmallows over potatoes, and put back in oven. Cook until marshmallows melt and begin to brown, about 10 minutes.

Tip: If you are not serving this right away do not put the marshmallows on yet. Wait until you re-heat it to sprinkle the marshmallows on it.

Yummy!