One thing I love about fall and winter is that all the groceries have sweet potatoes out and often on sale. Whether we bake the sweet potatoes and serve them right in the jackets or fancy them up for a holiday, they always add a special taste treat to a meal. Plus, they're healthy. That's always nice.
Sweet potato casseroles are great for holiday gatherings or for pot luck dinners. Most require boiling and mashing the sweet potatoes. Those are very tasty and remind me of sweet potato pie. A more unique casserole is the grated sweet potato casserole. It elimates the boiling stage of the process. It also gives the casserole a slightly different but very nice texture.
Sweet Potato Casserole
- 3 cups sweet potatoes (grated)
- 2 1/2 cups milk (not low fat)
- 1/2 cup butter softened (margarine is fine)
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1/8 tsp. maple (optional)
- 1 cup flaked coconut
Pour the milk into a large mixing bowl. Then, grate the sweet potatos into the milk. Use the large hole on a hand grater. The pieces should look like shoestring hash browns. The milk helps keep the sweet potato strings from turning dark while you're working.
In a smaller mixing bowl, beat eggs lightly. Add sugar, butter, salt, vanila, maple, and coconut. Mix well.
Pour the egg/sugar mixture into the bigger bowl with the milk and sweet potatos. Again, mix well.
Grease an approximately 9 x 11 baking casserole dish. Pour the sweet potato mixture into the casserole dish.
Bake at 350 degrees F for about one hour. You want the casserole to firm up but don't want to brown or burn the top. The basic look is like the way a pumpkin pie looks when it's cooked.
