What’s the best way to make cranberries, green bean casserole & yams for the holidays? What’s the best t?

For ham, go with a basic spiral sliced ham from the store. It should come with its own glaze packet, and is the least hassle method of preparing a ham.

For cranberry sauce, I like this one:

Title: APRICOT-GINGER CRANBERRY SAUCE
Categories: Sauces, Fruits, Side dish, Holiday
Yield: 6 servings

INGREDIENTS:
14 Dried apricots, each cut
-into 3 strips (I prefer to cut mine into small cubes, rather than strips)
1/2 c Orange juice
12 oz Fresh (or thawed frozen)
-cranberries
1/2 c Plus 1 tbsp. sugar
1 tb Minced, pared, fresh ginger

Soak the dried apricots in the orange juice in a medium saucepan for ten minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and stir them well. Cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat until the cranberries have popped and the syrup has thickened slightly – that should take about 5 minutes. Let the sauce cool to room temperature, then refrigerate it (covered) until it’s *cold*. It can be stored for up to a week. Transfer the sauce to a serving dish and serve while it’s still cold. The colder the better, so long as it isn’t frozen.

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If you’re looking for the “traditional” green bean casserole, it’s canned cream of mushroom soup, some milk, salt and pepper, 4c of cooked green beans, and french fried onions on top. If I were making it myself, I’d cook some green beans for about 5-6 minutes in salted boiling water, then put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking. Make a basic cream sauce with fresh mushrooms, and maybe a little sherry, definitely a small bit of grated nutmeg. For the topping, I’d make some good breadcrumbs, grind them in a food processor with some deep fried onions and some salt and pepper to make a more homogeneous topping. Cook the beans while the sauce is prepping, toss the beans in once the sauce is done, put in a casserole, add the topping, and bake for 15 minutes at 425 for immediate consumption. Otherwise, mix beans and sauce, put them in the casserole, cover with saran wrap and refrigerate. Cook at 425 for 20-30 minutes, then add topping and cook another 10-15 minutes.

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As for yams, I’m a bigger fan of sweet potatoes, as they have a lot more natural sugar than yams, and don’t require a heavy syrup to sweeten them up. For the past few years, the big request has been for my sweet potato crumble. Roast however many potatoes you need (about 6 for a 9×13 dish). About 10 minutes before they’re done, throw two bananas in the roasting dish, skins on. Cool everything, peel, and mash together with butter, brown sugar, salt, pepper and chile(new mexico or chipotle)/cayenne pepper (NOT chili powder). Make a crumb topping of rolled oats, chopped pecans, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and chile/cayenne. Put crumb topping on fresh mix in a 9×13 dish and bake 15-20 minutes at 425 for fresh, or refrigerate sweet potato mix, bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes, add crumb and bake another 10-15. A nice combination of sweet and heat, and the roasted bananas are a great addition.