Thanksgiving Sweet Potatoes

Sorry this took a while to get up. I've been... decompressing from Thanksgiving. Yeah, that's my excuse. Not that I've been reading books, avoiding working at home, or just generally being slothful.

My contribution to Thanksgiving dinner was a HUGE hit. Sadly, I have no photos of my sweet potato dish, but Deb at SmittenKitchen has some here. She made up this recipe to do something different with the sweet potatoes her adorable one year old insisted on eating. And ohmigod are they amazing. You can do them with the topping, with just goat cheese or just plain roasted sweet potatoes that taste anything but plain. These little sweet potato coins even converted my stubborn big sister into a sweet potato-lover! To serve about 12 people as an appetizer, I used double Deb's recipe (reflected in the recipe I give here) and ended up with plenty of topping left over, which I believe my parents used to spice up a green salad.

Sweet potatoes with pecans and goat cheese

3 lbs of sweet potatoes, unpeeled
4 + 4 T olive oil
1/2 cup toasted pecans
3 tiny or 1 small-medium shallot, diced
3-4 stalks of celery
4 T parsley (best with fresh, but dry works just fine)
2 T dried cranberries or cherries
4 oz firm goat cheese
Salt and pepper
4 t red wine vinegar
1 t Dijon mustard

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Scrub the sweet potatoes really well, then slice into 3/4-1" coins. Brush both sides with olive oil and lay on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake sweet potatoes 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven, flip them over and salt/pepper the other side. Bake for about 10 minutes more. Your sweet potatoes will be dark and a bit blistered and you should be able to lift them from the pan easily.

While the sweet potatoes are baking, make up the dressing. To toast the pecans, spread them on a baking sheet (do not salt the nuts prior to toasting), and you can bake them while the oven is preheating for the sweet potatoes. Finely chop the nuts, cranberries, shallot, celery and parsley if using fresh. Whisk together 4 T olive oil with the red wine vinegar and Dijon mustard. Toss all of these ingredients together with the goat cheese and heap on top of slightly cooled sweet potato coins. And serve and enjoy!

The sweet potatoes are best if served warm, and will start to get slightly mushy if they sit around too long. These were a huge hit at Thanksgiving dinner and again the next day when I made them for early family "Christmas." Bon apetit!