Sweet Peeps Casserole

Instead of doing nothing for Easter, as usual, I decided to get a little festive for about an hour today. Honestly, weird conglomerations of sugary substances are not one of my favorite things, but sometimes seasonal candy really hits the spot.

Despite my thoughts on most candy, Peeps will always have a special place in my heart. This may be because they're so cute (little bunnies and birds), or it may be because they are one of the candies my mother would never let me buy (I think she just doesn't like them). Either way, I wanted to do some cooking with Peeps this year. Peepshi (peep sushi) sounded like too much work, and most of my Google search results appeared to be jokes. I was discouraged until it occurred to me to do a variation on a "classic" that I would otherwise never make. A similar recipe can be found here.

Ingredients:
3-4 large sweet potatoes or yams
12-14 Marshmallow Peeps, birds of any color
2 tablespoons syrup (any sweetener will do)
1/2 stick of butter
2 tablespoons lemon juice
A pinch of salt
A pinch of cinnamon

Peel your potatoes and boil until soft. Drain and mash with the butter. Add syrup, lemon juice, salt and cinnamon. Stir very well and add this mix to a baking dish.

Decorate with Peeps on top. Eat remaining peeps, savoring the fact that there are very few excuses as good as this one to eat sugary marshmallows. Consider taking photos of the Peeps doing cute things. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Serve when cool.

Thai Style Baked Veggies

This looked surprisingly yummy raw but tasted great after 30 minutes in the oven. It could be a side dish, but I ate it as a main course. It's an adaption of this Mark Bittman recipe. I like to play fast and loose with the ingredients whenever I make this. Whatever vegetables you've got will work.

My dish included one large sweet potato, one baking potato, 1/2 red bell pepper, 1/2 yellow bell pepper, 1/2 green pepper, 4 cloves of garlic, about a cup of broccoli, and one large onion. This was also spicier than Bittman recommends. I added crushed red pepper and green chillies.

Check back later this week to see what I do with the other half of all those bell peppers!

Table for a family

Pardon my lack of posts, but I've been at home with my family relaxing for the last several days. The holidays are a good time for family bonding and good eats, both of which I have been enjoying. Seeing as I have a cooking blog, I thought it would be appropriate for me to contribute something to our Thanksgiving dinner. I also thought it would be appropriate to utilize my mother's kitchen, fancy amenities and all.

Over the long weekend, I made two dishes featured on the Smitten Kitchen. The first was sun dried tomato stuffed mushrooms.

I served these as an appetizer at our Thanksgiving dinner. They were tasty, but the parsley flavor got cooked out.

On Sunday, I made sweet potato buttermilk pie. This not only allowed me to use every dish in my mother's kitchen, but was also delicious. Considering that this was the first time I ever actually made a pie, it turned out well. The texture was perfect. Try it!