Recipe: Badass Sweet Potato Casserole

For the month prior to Thanksgiving, my daughter was going on and on and on about the sweet potato casserole my mother made last year. "Are you going to make the sweet potatoes this year, Daddy?" Yikes, fine! So I called my mother, got the recipe, and improved it. Here's the new badass version of this new holiday favorite.

That's a lot of marshmallows - use as many or as few as you want

Badass Sweet Potato Casserole

Easily serves 8 at Thanksgiving

INGREDIENTS

• 8 Medium Sweet Potatoes
• 1/3 Cup Milk
• 2 Tbs Melted Butter
• 8 oz Can Crushed Pineapple in juice
• 1/4 Cup Chopped Pecans
• Mini-Marshmallows
• Canola oil
• Salt & pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Peel and quarter the sweet potatoes.
2. Toss the potatoes in ~1 Tbs of oil, put into a shallow roasting pan, salt & pepper the potatoes, and roast in a 400 degree oven for 1 hour. Turn the potatoes after ~40 minutes. Potatoes are done when a knife easily penetrates the potato.

This is how your potatoes will look after they are roasted. 

The dark parts are fine - in fact, that's good flavor!

3. Put the roasted potatoes in a bowl and mash them up - the consistency is up to you, but I beat the shit out of them.
4. Add melted butter, milk, pineapple (and juice), and pecans*, and stir to combine.

Potatoes ready for oven. Butter, milk, pineapple, and pecans mixed-in. Cover with foil and bake for 20 mins. OR, cover with plastic and park in the fridge until your oven is ready.

5. Pour into a small/medium casserole dish, cover, and bake at 400 degrees for ~20 minutes.
6. Remove foil, top with mini-marshamallows, and return to the oven (uncovered) until the marshmallows brown slightly (about 10 minutes)
7. Evacuate from the oven and put some on your Thanksgiving plate. No room on your plate? Put the dinner roll on-top of the turkey - there, I just found 4 square inches of space.

FAQs

• I hate sweet potatoes. Will I like this? >> Yeah, probably. I have hated sweet potatoes for decades, especially the marshmallow-topped version. With the roasted potatoes and the salt and pepper, it becomes something more delicious. Give it a try.
• Why is there an asterisk* by the pecans? >> You should "toast" those nuts. Just put them in a non-stick skillet over medium heat for a few minutes - toss every minute or two. When they are warmed-through and you can smell nuts, you're done. Don't burn them, dammit, that's not good flavor.