I am a southern woman, through and through. One of my favorite Thanksgiving recipes is candied yams. I look forward to eating these things all year long. I can honestly say I have a sweet tooth, and these yams truly do taste like candy.
To make them, you only need a few ingredients: butter, brown sugar, and of course, yams. You can even use canned yams if you want to.
First, melt a cup of butter on medium in your saucepan. Next, add two tightly packed cups of brown sugar. Bring it to a boil.
Then, pour your brown sugar and butter mixture over your yams in a 9×12 baking dish. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.
Next, eat some delicious candied yams until you feel like you’re going to pop- they’re that good.
I hope you enjoy this recipe! What is your favorite way to cook candied yams?
Last year, we found ourselves scrambling to make Thanksgiving plans amidst a global pandemic. Unable to gather with local family and unable to travel to out of state family, we decided to host our very own Thanksgiving celebration at home for the four of us.
While I am a decent cook, I’m not a chef. I’m far from it. No one at my house is going to go hungry, but I’m not used to cooking large holiday feasts.
Dinner turned out well, and it tasted great, but there are still a few things I would like to share to make your life easier.
1. Plan ahead!
Do as much as you can ahead of time. Plan your meal in advance. Make your shopping list early and buy the ingredients a week in advance- that way, you have plenty of time to make changes or pick up additional ingredients. If there are any dishes you can make a day early, do it. Save yourself some time and last minute planning.
2. Not everything has to be made from scratch.
Not everything tastes good premade but you can get away with using some canned or premade goods. Why not save yourself some time by using frozen yeast rolls or canned yams? If it works for you, and your family is happy, why does it matter?
3. Make sure you have extra cookware on hand
Most of us don’t typically use three or four pots at once to cook dinner, so a lot of us don’t have that many pots. Try to calculate when you will be cooking what so you can ensure you have enough pots before you get started. This way, you can borrow or purchase extras in advance.
4. Research unfamiliarrecipes
Never cooked a turkey before? No problem! Just research the recipe that meets your needs! We are a busy family with small, picky children who won’t eat just anything. I searched for a few weeks before I found a turkey recipe I thought everyone in our family would enjoy!
5. And lastly, don’t stress over the small details
Your kids and your family aren’t going to remember whether everything is perfect- they are going to remember how much they enjoyed family dinners with their loved ones. Don’t stress on the small details- remember to relax and have a good time with your family.
I hope you all had a magnificent Thanksgiving. We took the week off blogging to focus on what really matters- family, fun and FOOD.
The littlest lumber loved eating all the various good foods- especially these cupcakes!
We also spent our Saturday at our church’s Christmas bazaar- see my super cute helper?
We ate not one but four different Thanksgiving dinners in a two-weekend span. It was delicious and wonderful. The company was good, too.
We have been redecorating our living room, which we can hopefully show you soon. For today, we are Black Friday shopping for our two remaining pieces of furniture and then coming home to clean and start our Christmas decorating.
Can’t wait to share our new living room and our Christmas tour! Be safe and have a great weekend!!
I can’t believe November is already upon us. I am furiously working to finish some house projects so we can concentrate on the holiday season- our fireplace project is coming right along, and our back porch project is coming together as well.
I have begun to plan for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I’ll soon be sharing some free printables you can use to plan your holiday seasons.
In the meantime, I’d love to share some Pinspiration concerning my absolute favorite Thanksgiving table scapes.
1. Pottery Barn simple pumpkins, birch candles and greenery
This Pottery Barn photo is meant to feature the table runner, but there are so many things in it I love. The simple dishes paired with the gold flatware, the unique place setting markers, and the candles paired with the greenery and white pumpkins looks nice without looking overdone. So many good things happening here.
2. Farmhouse Mallory, simple place setting with typography
This beautiful place setting inspires me so much. I love the linens, the greenery, and the textured placemats with the woven chargers. Everything goes together and plays off of one another so well. And you know I’m a sucker for word art, typography, and quotes, so those little “thankful die cuts” are my fave. That’d be a neat gift for your guests to take home as well.
We can’t leave out the littlest turkey eaters- if your family is like mine and there are many tiny turkey consumers in your midst, you can create a super cute, super functional table just for them. Here, the placemats do double duty- they protect the table and add a little cuteness, but they also give those tiny tots something to do while they wait for dinner to finish. Just provide the crayons and let them work away at their next masterpiece. They can even take the pumpkin home as a favor.
What if you didn’t want to use pumpkins for Thanksgiving decor, and you chose to use oranges or apples? I think this table scape from Williams Sonoma has a great balance of greenery, color, and neutral tones and textures. Simple, yet elegant.
Rae Dunn? Check. Buffalo-checked napkins? Check. Candles intermingled with greenery and white pumpkins? Check. It’s like someone threw all of my favorites into one photo table scape. I’m loving it.
I hope you enjoyed my tablescape feature! I can’t wait to show you which “Pinspired” idea I choose to use. Have a wonderful weekend!
