Maple Sweet Potato Casserole

With a vegetarian/clean eating mom and four kids who like all different things, dinner can quickly turn in to a debacle. We are just thankful that dad comes from a family of eight kids and will eat whatever is on the plate before him. We're working on getting the kids there, but realistically it may not happen for a few years with the littlest of our littles. I'm trying to keep track of all the kid friendly meals I've been making lately, but I wanted to record this recipe before I forget what I did to create it. :) It will come in handy for Thanksgiving, too, if you need an extra dish to bring.

I love sweet potato casserole and I always feel like mine never comes out quite right. You know, a lot of times it comes out like this.

But this time...gracious. It was SO good. I think I've finally cracked the code on sweet potato casserole mastery. 

Here's what I did. 

First things first. It's not because I'm lazy, it's because I'm left-handed. I don't like peeling sweet potatoes. It's a huge pain and I usually end up slicing my hand in one way or another or dropping a potato down the garbage disposal. So, I didn't peel the potatoes. I baked (four of) them in the oven (pierced and wrapped in foil - 400 degrees for like an hour or hour and a half). 

Once the potatoes were nice and tender (and only slightly scalding hot), I sliced them in half and scooped the potato out into my baking dish. Instead of egg (remember my irrational salmonella fear?) I added half a cup of Greek Yogurt (I didn't really measure it, but I was aiming for half a cup). Then I seasoned the tar out of all of it with cinnamon. After I cinnamonized it, I came to the moment of truth. Do I lace this sucker with brown sugar or try a "clean" alternative. I just so happened to have pure, local, maple syrup. I would say I used 1/4-1/2 cup of maple syrup and stirred to combine. Omgosh. So good. I added about 1/2 tsp of sea salt as well. Next, I scooped in the rest of the butter in the butter dish (about 2T and then added 1T of coconut oil). Mmm..... I stirred all well to combine and baked at 325 for about 30min or so. Once my salmon patties were about done, I added some mini marshmallows and allowed those to burn and set off the smoke detector melt beautifully on top of the casserole. 

It was SO delicious. I have to think the maple syrup and coconut oil had something to do with it. I hope you'll try this recipe. It was seriously the best ever...after I removed the charred marshmallows and made a second attempt. 

Here's what you need: 

• 4 big sweet potatoes
• 1/4c pure maple syrup
• Cinnamon
• 1/2tsp tea salt
• 1/2c plain greek yogurt
• 2T butter
• 1T coconut oil
• Tons of mini marshmallows

Now, go make it and enjoy!!! :)