Tomorrow afternoon my family will be blessed with an abundance of amazing food as we celebrate Thanksgiving. We will eat until we can eat no more, and then we’ll consider going back for seconds. Dessert will come later, and we’ll feast on slices of pumpkin or pecan pie – or both – topped with sweet whipped cream. Tomorrow we will not know hunger.

There are so many out there for whom hunger is a part of every day life. In this country, more than 50 million people struggle to put food on their table each day. Their plates – and the plates of their children – are often empty.

This Thanksgiving, if the spirit moves you to do so, please consider making a donation to Share Our Strength. In this small way, you can help fill the empty plate of someone less fortunate.

Thanks to Jennifer for inspiring this post. Please read her post to see a list of other food bloggers participating in this cause.

Well, here it is – the week of Thanksgiving. I made my shopping list over the weekend, and my dear husband shopped for all the items for me on Sunday. My refrigerator is filled with all varieties of milk (skim, whole, cream, and buttermilk), eggs, lots of unsalted butter, apples, and celery. Apparently celery was on a 2 for 1 special, so now we have lots of celery. In fact, if you need any celery, I’m happy to share some with you.

We’re sometimes stumped on what to eat for dinner in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. It’s obvious that on Thursday we’ll have turkey. And we’ll be eating turkey and the various leftover side dishes during the next few days after Thanksgiving. The days leading up to the big day are filled with prep work – making pie crust, baking cornbread, baking biscuits – so a dish that is easy to make and comforting to the body and soul is in order.

Like soup. White bean soup to be exact.

Beans have been a staple in my house since I was a kid. Growing up, my parents often served us big bowls of stewed white beans flavored with a ham hock, especially on cool fall or winter nights. Those creamy, comforting beans were served with a side of skillet-baked cornbread, and to this day, I have a hard time eating a bowl of white beans without some cornbread to go with it.

The biggest obstacle I run into when I want to make beans is the soaking time. I’m a very last minute dinner planner, so I rarely remember to set the dry beans out to soak the night before. I saw an article in the New York Times by Melissa Clark a few weeks ago, and the title got my attention immediately. Her recipe immediately went on to my Must Make list.

Because of that whole health thing, I substituted chicken sausage for the sweet Italian sausage. The chicken sausage I chose was flavored with red and green peppers, and it turned out to be a good choice for the flavors in this stew. By the time we were ready to eat, the house was filled with the most amazing aromas – a heavenly blend of the sauteed sausage and aromatics combined with the garlic, thyme, and rosemary.

The true test of a meal in my home is whether the kids will eat it. This herbed white bean stew passed the test with flying colors as far as my six year old daughter is concerned. My four-year-old wouldn’t touch it the first night, but he happily ate the leftovers the second night. I’m counting this as a win on both counts.

The only thing missing? I forgot to make the cornbread to go with it.

Yield: Serves 6 to 8.

Herbed White Bean and Sausage Stew

Only slightly tweaked from Melissa Clark's recipe which she wrote about here. I simmered the beans for close to 3 hours instead of the 2 hours she recommends, and I think it helped the texture of the beans.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 pound chicken sausage, sweet Italian style, sliced 3/4-inch thick
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 medium carrots, finely diced
2 celery stalks, finely diced
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 pound dried Great Northern beans, rinsed and picked through
2 teaspoons kosher salt, or to taste
2 thyme sprigs
1 large rosemary sprig
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus more to taste

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large stockpot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and brown until cooked through, about 7 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.

Add the tomato paste and cumin to the pot. Cook, stirring, until dark golden, about 2 minutes. Add the carrots, celery, and onion. Cook, stirring, until the vegetables have softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic to the pot and cook, stirring, until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in the beans, 8 cups of water, salt, thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf. Turn the heat up to high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer gently until the beans are tender, 2 to 3 hours, adding more water as necessary to make sure the beans remain submerged.

When the beans are tender, return the sausage to the pot. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the vinegar and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve drizzled with additional vinegar and olive oil.

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My husband’s grandmother, known by the family simply as Grandma, made several traditional dishes each Thanksgiving and Christmas. I wrote about her cornbread dressing here. Another one of her specialties was a sweet potato casserole topped with a pecan streusel. After she died in 1993, the tradition of making her recipes was adopted by various members of her family. I started making the dressing as my usual Thanksgiving dish, and my sister-in-law took over sweet potato duty.

Grandma’s sweet potato casserole is a thing of beauty. It’s sweet and rich, and the dish could almost substitute for dessert. The crunchy streusel topping makes an ideal textural contrast to the smooth mashed sweet potatoes which lie underneath.

The casserole can be made very easily with fresh sweet potatoes, but if you’re in a pinch, you can use canned yams. Because the canned yams are packaged in syrup, I chose to use fresh sweet potatoes. I chose six medium-sized potatoes, baked them for an hour, peeled them, and mashed the sweet potatoes by hand.

I also burned my fingers on the hot potatoes. Don’t do that. You should let these cool a bit before peeling them. Learn from my mistake.

While the potatoes bake, you can make the streusel topping with chopped pecans, butter, flour, and brown sugar. This part can even be done the day before; just store the topping in a resealable plastic bag and keep it in the refrigerator until ready to use.

It’s hard for me to make a recipe exactly as it’s written these days, and Grandma’s sweet potato casserole is no exception. I was hoping to find a way to make it a little healthier (so I could eat more), so I cut back on some of the sugar and butter. I won’t do that again. The casserole was still delicious, but it didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted it to taste.

Since this recipe comes with such strong taste memories for me and my husband, from now on I’ll prepare it using all those extra calories. It just tastes better with them. It tastes like Grandma’s. It tastes like Thanksgiving.

Grandma's Sweet Potato Casserole

Serves 6-8 as a side dish, depending on how many times your family goes back for seconds. The struesel topping makes enough for a double-size recipe. I find it easier to make a larger batch of streusel and then keep the extra in a resealable plastic bag. The extra pecan streusel makes a nice topping for steel cut oatmeal in the morning.]

Ingredients:

Ingredients for Casserole:

5 medium-to-large sweet potatoes
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs, beaten well
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Ingredients for Streusel Topping:

1 cup light brown sugar, packed [You could also use dark brown sugar instead.]
1/3 cup (about 5 1/2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place sweet potatoes on a foil-lined sheet pan and pierce each several times with the tines of a fork. Bake for 1 hour, or until the potatoes are tender. Allow to cool to the touch, then peel and mash well in a bowl.

Decrease oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Make streusel topping: Blend brown sugar, butter, flour, and chopped pecans together with a pastry blender or fork. Set aside.

Mix mashed sweet potatoes with sugar, eggs, butter, and vanilla. Pour into a 9 x 9 inch lightly greased casserole dish. Sprinkle sweet potato mixture with the streusel topping, as much as your heart desires.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the casserole is set.

Note: The casserole can be prepared up to 24 hours in advance. Pour the prepared sweet potatoes into a tightly-covered dish, but do not add the topping. When ready to bake, pour into the casserole dish and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Top with struesel and bake as directed.

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