Sweet potato dressibng

 

This sweet potato dressing is spectacular. It’s great with turkey at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Warning: All quantities are approximate, so adjust them according to taste.

3 large sweet potatoes

Pork sausage meat, anything from half a pound to a pound. I usually use breakfast sausage, but I've heard Italian sausage works well. I’m picky about my sausage meat – no MSG, no nitrates, no high fructose corn syrup, etc. If I can’t find what I’m looking for in bulk form, I squeeze it out of the casings or make it myself with ground pork and salt, pepper, sage, paprika, etc. There are lots of recipes on the Internet that help with the proportions of herbs and spices to meat.

Butter or oil

1 onion, 3 or 4 celery stalks, 1 green pepper and 1 red pepper, all diced. The green and red pepper give it a festive look.

Several sprigs of parsley, chopped

Bread crumbs, the coarse kind used for stuffings and dressings, or you can make your own with stale bread and add salt, pepper, sage and other herbs to taste. I usually use around half a package of Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Stuffing.

Bake the sweet potatoes until done. Sauté the onions and sausage meat, then add and sauté the celery and peppers. There is quite a bit of fat in ground pork, but you will probably need to use butter or oil as well. Peel and mash the sweet potatoes and mix in the meat and vegetables. Add bread crumbs to taste (the more bread crumbs, the drier the dressing). Season to taste. Add a little water if it seems too dry. Bake in a 9x13 pan at 350 degrees (medium oven) for about half an hour.

Yum!

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Barbara Monajem is the award-winning author of the Bayou Gavotte paranormal mysteries, Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil, Tastes of Love & Evil, and Heart of Constantine. She wrote her first story at eight years old about apple tree gnomes. After dabbling in neighborhood musicals and teen melodrama, she published a middle-grade fantasy when her children were young. Now her kids are adults, and she's writing historical and paranormal romance and mystery for grownups. She lives near Atlanta, Georgia with an ever-shifting population of relatives, friends, and feline strays.

About Heart of Constantine

Vigilante Native American rock star Constantine Dufray has hit bottom. His telepathic abilities have spun out of control and destructive rumors about him run rampant. Some are true—he caused a violent cop's suicide, and telepathy destroyed his marriage—but he didn't poison his wife, and he couldn't have caused riots at his concerts, killing his fans...or could he have? Now an unknown enemy is trying to frame him for rape and murder. Meanwhile, aura reader Marguerite McHugh finally gets a close encounter with the mysterious star, but it's nothing like she expected. When Constantine finds her after she's been drugged at one of his shows, Marguerite's pulled into his quest for the truth. As danger mounts and murders pile up, Constantine and Marguerite are forced into an ever-more intimate relationship. Only by facing their fears and working together can they unmask the killer before more innocent people die.

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