Recipe blogging, Thanksgiving edition

This is completely unlike me, but I am going to share a holiday recipe with you because it doesn't seem like Thanksgiving to me without it.

I was such a picky eater until adulthood, the first time I ever ate sweet potatoes was when I first had Thanksgiving dinner at the house where Mr. Tangerine grew up. We've been together since the late '80s, so these sweet potatoes and I, we go way back. My mother-in-law makes the world's best turkey—even the white meat is tender and juicy—but it's her sweet potatoes I can't get enough of. They could double as dessert.

This year, we're having Thanksgiving Day brunch at my sister's, which means that there will be no giant turkey dinner—but dammit, I will have my mother-in-law's sweet potatoes because I've got the recipe now.

Mom's Sweet Sweet Potatoes

8 medium sweet potatoes
1 cup of brown sugar
1 stick of butter (or 1 1/2 sticks if you like 'em buttery)
1 cup of orange juice concentrate

Boil the sweet potatoes for about 45 minutes until they're soft when you poke them with a fork. Drain and cool. Peel the sweet potatoes. Mash with a potato masher and pull out any stringy bits you run into.

Melt the butter and brown sugar together and mix into the mashed sweet potatoes. Then add the OJ concentrate.

Scoop the mixture into a casserole dish, smooth the top, and bake at 375° for 30 to 45 minutes or until the edges turn brown.

Serve to great acclaim.

Modifications to recipe, or
How I Actually Made the Sweet Sweet Potatoes
(Should I call it Orange's Sweet Potatoes?)

6 medium sweet potatoes
1 cup of brown sugar
1 stick of butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
almost 1 cup of orange juice concentrate (thawed)

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into halves or thirds. Boil for about 30 to 35 minutes or until they're soft when you poke them with a fork. Drain the pan and let one chunk of sweet potato fall into the sink. (Leave it there.) Mash the surviving potato chunks with a potato masher.

Melt the butter and brown sugar together (30 seconds in the microwave should do), stir in the vanilla, and mix into the mashed sweet potatoes. Then add the OJ concentrate and stir it up.

Scoop one serving of sweet potatoes into a bowl for yourself and eat it. Dump the rest of it into a casserole dish (it looks a tad shallow in a 9x13 pan, so maybe a 9x9 would be better) and smooth the top. Store it in the fridge.

Tomorrow, bake it at 375° for 30 to 45 minutes or just until the edges begin to turn brown, really just to reheat the sweet potatoes ('cause they taste perfectly fine without this step). Serve to great acclaim.