Recipe: Sweet Potato Apple Casserole

It isn't often that I vote to reinvent the classics. But at Thanksgiving, Mr. Food Musings' sister R. bowled me over with a whole new take on sweet potato casserole. Throw out your stale marshmallows and try this one at your next celebration -- Christmas, Hannukah, the next Kate Spade sample sale, whatever.

(And let me know if, like me, you were tempted to just throw a scoop of vanilla on top and call it dessert!)

Sweet Potato Apple Casserole
Serves 6

R. credits her college roommate's sister with the recipe. We modified it somewhat from the original, substituting apples for pears, using a mix of orange yams and yellow sweet potatoes to make it purty, and fiddling with the amounts of most of the ingredients to suit us. We also made 1 1/2 times the original recipe because we had nine hungry bellies, and it worked out grand. For the recipe below, I'd use a medium-sized casserole dish, but if you're going to double it for a bigger crew, pull out the Big Boy (9x13).

2 - 3 medium yams and/or sweet potatoes, boiled in jackets till tender, then peeled and cut into 1/4" slices
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup cranberries
1 large apple (or pear), peeled and thinly sliced
3 TBSP butter
1/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a casserole dish with cooking spray or butter, then layer in half the yams/sweet potatoes. Mix brown sugar, salt and cinnamon, and sprinkle yams/sweet potatoes with half of the brown sugar mixture and 1/2 cup of cranberries. Top with a layer of the remaining yams, then a layer of apple, and sprinkle with the remaining brown sugar goodness. Dot with butter and toss on the remaining 1/2 cup cranberries. Pour orange juice over top. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle with walnuts; bake 5 minutes more.

Comments

[Mom]

Made a copy of this one--looks delish!!

[Adrienne]

I'm partial to those stale marshmallows, but this dish looks delicious.

[Catherine]

Mom -- we could have this at Christmas instead of the usual...

Adrienne -- it's worth trying, that's all I'll say. I too thought that marshmallows were the Way of the Sweet Potato, until I ate this.