Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Cooking for a Holiday - Thanksgiving, Part X - The Night Before

I've already had a martini, and the pizza is on the way.

Whatever.  It's holiday time!  Holidays begin on the "eve" and end with the leftovers.  Hence, the martini. 

I'm close, but not in the home stretch yet.  Two things are happening tonight (after pizza):  vegetable prep for the stuffing and sweet potatoes.

For the vegetables, you need a bunch of celery.  Trim, wash, and chop.  Fry them in a half-a-stick of butter until a little soft.  Transfer to a big bowl.  Then take two gigantic onions.  Peel, wash, and chop.  Fry them in another half-a-stick of butter until soft and a little brown.  Put them in the big bowl with the celery.  Mix them up, let cool a little, and then put it all in a Tupperware container.  Store in the fridge until tomorrow, when the mixture will become un buon'amico with the bread you've got chopped up for stuffing.

For the sweet potatoes:  Peel 3 big sweet potatoes.  Slice into thin slices.  (You can buy them already peeled and sliced now, which means civilization is still making progress.)  Butter a 9" X 13" baking pan or spray it with some "no-stick" stuff.  Now put a layer of sweet potato slices in the pan and sprinkle with lemon juice, brown sugar, salt, and paprika.  Dot with butter.  Repeat until pan is full and/or you run out of sweet potatoes.  I usually get four layers out of it.  Cover pan with foil and put in the refrigerator.  You'll bake them tomorrow, still covered with foil, at 350 degrees, for about 45 minutes to an hour.  After the sweet potatoes are baked, pull them out of the oven and cover them with marshmallows, which my kids insist upon.  Then put them back in the oven and bake, uncovered, until the marshmallows are bubbly and browned.

That's it!  Go get your beauty sleep.

The moment of glory is at hand.


 

1 comment:

  1. Wish you a great Thanksgiving day, my dearest friend
    you were one of the bests gifts of my life, one I'm certainly and utterly thankful for!
    love,
    Aida

    ReplyDelete

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