Editor’s note: For 12 days leading up to Christmas, St. George News is featuring staff members’ favorite holiday recipes. Here’s the latest installment.
ST. GEORGE — Do you remember the items we wouldn’t eat at Christmas dinner but have grown up to enjoy?
A scene of holiday family, friends and supper, location and date undisclosed | Photo by Nicole Michalou/Pexels, St. George News
I remember eating the marshmallows from sweet potatoes at friends’ houses but never really enjoying them. And when my mother made the dish, I wouldn’t even touch it.
But within the last decade, I have changed my mind about a lot of things. And my taste has changed too.
During the COVID pandemic, I tried my best to recreate the sweet and savory dish my mother used to make. She liked nuts in everything, me not so much.
Savory Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients:
4 sweet potatoes, or about 2 ½ pounds, peeled and diced into 1-inch pieces
3 apples, cored and diced into 1-inch pieces, peel if desired
2 bell peppers, any color, cut and diced
½ to 1 sweet onion, diced
½ cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons McCormick pumpkin spice
2 teaspoons oregano or Italian seasoning
1 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped, if you like the taste of dirt
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Colorful, healthy fruits and vegetables like apples and sweet potatoes lying in a silver tin bowl, location and date unspecified | Photo by franconiaphoto/Getty Images, St. George News
Directions:
Peel sweet potatoes. Cut into similar-sized 1-inch pieces for baking. Use any apple. I prefer green apples; my mother liked crisp red. Now I use both. Cut into similar-sized pieces.
Grease a large-sized, 9×13, glass or metal baking dish with olive oil. Add a little more oil to the ingredients and mix well.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Stir, top with nuts and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until potatoes are soft. If not adding nuts, simply stir and test potato firmness at this point to ensure even cooking.
This dish goes well with traditional ham and turkey dinners, but also steak, prime rib, burgers or with a salad and soup.
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