Thanksgiving sweet potato tots

When I was in Wisconsin this past September, the Grumpy Troll in Mt. Horub had these wonderful sweet potato tots.  Like regular potato tots but made with sweet potatos.  I thought that would make a great Thanksgiving dish.  So I set out to create my own.  Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:
2 medium sized yams (I used red garnets) that came to about 4 cups shredded.
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/8 - 1/4 cup brown sugar (I wasn't so precise about this)
1 cup mini-marshallows

Stir all the above together to mix well.
Microwave 2 minutes to melt the mini-marshallows.  stir half way through
Allow to cool.

Now the difficult part.  Form balls of the shredded yam mix with your had and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze as much of the liquid out as you possibly can.  Set carefully into 375 degree oil.  I used a canola oil.  Deep fry for about 1 1/2 minutes until brown.  Allow to dry on paper towel. Makes 15 - 20 tots.

These are labor intensive but really really good.

shredded yams

mixed with mini-marshallows

the tots

I would like to figure out how to make them a bit smaller.  Or possibly keep the size and come up with different dips.

Thanksgiving

Christine and her mom, Nancy, holding my homemade apple and raspberry pie.

For the past several years I have had Thanksgiving dinner with Christine and her parents.  Tim and Nancy fly in from West Virginia and stay for a week or two.

Mrs. Peters always cooks a wonderful Thanksgiving feast.  I bring the sweet potatos and usually a pie.  This year I made the pie from apples and raspberries picked in my backyard this summer.

And for the record there was no snow on the ground.  The high temperature for the day was officially 59 very warm degrees.

No travel this week

Not having to travel this week is great. I was able to sleep-in on Monday and each morning since.

Getting some little projects done and helping out the neighbor...

Neighbors Sari and Mather are remodeling their kitchen needed to dispose of the old cabinets. I called up JT. JT and his pal Bob came over this morning and loaded them onto their trailer. Less material in the dumpster, the landfill and put to good use.

After 20 years I finally have installed outdoor and backdoor lights so I can see to get in and out the back in the dark. Thanks to skymall.com and amazon.com. These battery-operated LED lights turn themselves on and off. They are super easy to install.

This is number one on the backside of backporch.

Number two outside the back porch door.

Number three inside the porch.

Creepy

Was walking down the alley toward the house. Lots of crows on the trees and alley itself. Looked up into the trees and with te crows is the neighborhood falcon.

I counted 18 crows and one falcon. The falcon flew away with the crows following. Then a flock of pigeons flew off inthe other direction.

The whole thing seemed very creepy.

Team outing

I don't often put activities directly related to work on the blog but this was such a unique and fun event.  The team celebrated the completion of our first phase of work by getting manicutes and pedicures.  I have never had a manicure let alone a pedicure.

The team getting manicured.

Pedicure results.

The very generous Kim.

Chrysler 200 versus Ford Focus

Two weeks ago I rented a Chrysler 200, Chrysler's new 4 door compact.  The model available at National was a very basic model with no frills.   

 

Chrysler likes to tune their vehicles to sound aggressive and the 200 follows suit. It is a small car that sounds bigger.  Most importantly it is fun to drive.

 

Another Chrysler feature is an analog clock in the center of the console in addition to a digital block with the radio. It drives me crazy when the clock is way off and both clocks were off. I figured out how to fix the digital one thinking the analog would automatically follow along. But it didn't. You have to set them separately. ugh.

Last week I rented another 2012 Ford Focus. This tine it was a hatchback in bright red.   It is a very hot looking car. And a blast to drive. And unlike the Chrysler 200, this Focus was outfitted to the hilt. 

 

Everyone knows I like all the buttons and gadgets but this one might have been over the top. There are multiple buttons on each spoke of the wheel. One set controls the dash display between the speedometer and tachometer. The other set controls the radio.

Then there are ton of buttons to control the MyFord Sync system and radio/audio.  And more buttons to control the interior lights.  Of course I had to play with all of them.

Seats are comfortable and the body has the right amount of stiffness.  This new model Focus is just so much fun to drive.

The king of procrastination

I had all summer to do my home projects but I didn't do a darn one.  So this weekend and last have been spent scraping and painting and closing up the garden beds.

I've lucked out with the weather.  Last weekend was beautiful and above average temp.  Scraped porch window sills and trim then primed and painted.

This weekend I cleaned up all the garden beds.  Filled almost four compost bags.  The yard is ready for winter and looks kind of depressing.  Today I sanded and painted the back porch window/doors.  Only did the edges so next summer really need to do the entire back porch...next SUMMER!

I don't think the weather is going to stay on my side for more projects.

A break from the routine

Drove out to Mooresville last night to meet a friend from my Washington. DC Arena days -- Belinda Higdon, her husband Ronnie and daughter Olivia. Olivia is a sophomore at Mooresville High School and a member of the band. I drove to Mooresville to see Belinda and hear Olivia's band concert.
The concert was a real throw back to my high school band days.

Went to dinner afterwards to get caught up with Belinda.  It has been more than two decades!

Rollergirls

Me, Bunny, Amy and our "found" friend, Steve from Boston waiting for the 17 bus to downtown to go the Northstar Rollergirls.

Steve was very friendly and really like to talk.  We were told to wear pink to chear on the Delta Delta Di team.  Our waitress from Old Chicago, Megan, plays on the Delta Delta Di team whose cheer is "Stinky Pinky."

 The rollergirls are in the Minneapois Convention Center.  The rink is simply marked off on the poured concrete floor.

When these girls hit the floor, it looks very painful.

As you can tell from this very blurry picture, we were on the floor in the very front.  We had been warned to bring cushions thank goodness.

We were seated on turn one. The refs were between us and the game.  Though a couple of times there were a few close calls.

It was tons of fun.  At the end of the match, we got to run up to the girls for their victory lap and exchange high fives with the competitors.

The Jeffery Official Start of Fall

The annual dropping of the ginko leaves.

It was cold enough this morning to cause the trees to start dropping their leaves.  Walking to coffee was truly beautiful.  Twenty-nine degrees, no wind, bright sun...yellow, green and red leaves gently falling like giant colored snow flakes...such an amazing site.

Walked out the front door later in the morning to see the sidewalk and parked cars covered in yellow ginko leaves...ahhh.