Best Baked Yams - easy and yummy, the best combination:
Be sure to get the long skinny brown tubers, not the big fat football shaped orange ones. Very little is going to waste, so you can pick portion sizes right there in the produce department.
Wash well and carve off any blemishes. Tear off a sheet of tinfoil big enough to wrap each tuber. Get a handful of soft butter and schmear it all over each tuber, and wrap in foil. Have fun… it’s messy but hey, it’s good for your skin too.
Bake at 350, for about an hour to 75 minutes… serve with more butter, salt and pepper. Prepare it like a baked potato. You can add brown sugar at the table, but it’s really not necessary.
As for the turkey, what I used to do when I was a bachelor was bake the turkey breast on top of a big mound of Stove Top stuffing, made with as much extra water as I could get away with and still keep it stiff enough to stay in a mound.
I just piled it in the middle of the baking pan, and then sit the breast ribs-down on the mound of stuffing. The moisture from the stuffing keeps the turkey from drying out. Cover and bake as recommended, then take off the foil, turn up the oven, and bake another 20 minutes or so until the breast browns, or you’re afraid it’s gonna be turkey jerky, whichever comes first.
The Franco-American canned turkey gravy is passable. Don’t use the dried packages of gravy… those are terrible.
Fry some bacon in the bottom of a saucepan, and then when it’s cooked but not crispy, put in a can of green beans, and simmer a few minutes.
There ya go… Bachelor Thanskgiving: turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, gravy… add your cranberry creation. (Personally, I don’t get putting that much effort into a condiment, but whatever.)
Then, when you’re done eating your share of the turkey, throw the carcass on the floor and let the cats fight over it…
Thanksgiving is about the only time my boojum begs for table scraps anymore… I think he remembers his kittenhood, when I would put down a turkey breast carcass for him, and he would gnaw on it all day, even though it was bigger than he was!