Picnic Day: Yam Bake!

I’m going on a picnic, and I’m bringing…

• Artichokes Steamed and Dressed with Mayonnaise (Mae’s Food Blog)
• Baked Beans (Moveable Feasts)
• Cauliflower Tabbouleh (Bookcase Foodie)
• Dunkin’ Donuts ~ With Maple syrup & Honey Frosting (My Little Space)
• Eggplant Casserole (Yummy Chunklet)
• Frosty Summer Salad with Cranberry, Pineapple & Beets (Olla-Podrida)
• Goat Cheese Mixed Green Salad with Cocoa Nibs (Dying for Chocolate)
• Halibut and Salsa Verde (Squirrel Head Manor)
• Iced Coffee Two Ways (Art of Natural Living)
• Jubilee Sandwich (Kulinarische Zeitreise)
• Key Lime and Ambarella Juice (Riceball Eats)
• Limoncello Pine Nut Biscotti (Bakeaway with Me)
• Mini Meringue Kisses (The more than occasional baker)
• Nougat Brownies (I-Lost in Austen)
• Ozark Pudding (right here on Retro Recipe Attempts, last week!)
• Paletas de Chabacano y Manzanilla (Apricot Chamomile Popsicles) (girlichef)
• Quinoa Salad (My Sweet and Savory)
• Raspberries and Pears Cobbler Pie (Canela Kitchen)
• Strawberry & Kiwi Chocolate Tart (Cooking With Dia)
• Thai Fish Cakes in Pita Pockets (Frozen Wings)
• Udon salad with honey sesame lime dressing (Piece of Cake)
• Vegetable Salad with Lime Dressing (Bizzy Bakes)
• Watermelon With Fresh Mint And Lime (Kitchen Flavours )
• Xim-Xim De Galinha (Quay Po Cooks)
• Yam Bake

I suppose if you want to be picky, the recipe is technically titled “Sunburst Yam Bake.” However, picnics are about relaxing, so stop being so picky!

Sunburst Yam Bake

2 1-lb. 1-oz. cans Royal Prince Yams (sweet potatoes), drained
1 13-1/4-oz. can pineapple tidbits, drained
1/4 cup Kraft Pure Orange Marmalade
1 cup Kraft Miniature Marshmallows or 10 Jet-Puffed Marshmallows

Arrange yams in a circle in 9-inch pie plate. Place pineapple in center. Dot yams and pineapple with marmalade. Bake at 350°, 30 minutes. Top with marshmallows. Broil until lightly browned.

Unlike Ozark Pudding, this isn’t a recipe I’ve tried before. In fact, I’ve never made yams myself; it’s somebody else’s traditional dish at the annual Thanksgiving get-together. (I have eaten them, however, since I feel obliged to help Grandma feel better about her terrible cooking for some reason.)

With the pineapple and marmalade, it looks sort of summery, though. Let’s give it a shot.

Canned yams are a little hit-or-miss. Some of them are a lovely shade of orange, some are pale tan.

I thought it was strange that the can tried to assure me these were the “sweetheart of the yam” — as opposed to all those other brands that just give you the intestines of the yam, I guess?

This seems like a lot of pineapple for this many yams — two pounds of yams is dwarfed by thirteen ounces of pineapple!

I’m always amused when a recipe instructs me to “dot” something with an ingredient, since it’s invariably an ingredient that is sticky and won’t easily portion out in small dots. Butter, for example — or marmalade. So I “smeared” the yams and pineapple with marmalade instead.

I tried to make a smiling sun, but I’m not really sure how well it came out.

Be careful with the broiler! I looked away from this for five seconds while it was starting to brown, and came quite close to creating Charcoal Yam Bake. Luckily, it’s only slightly past “perfectly toasted.”

My daughter, who hates sweet potatoes, was nearly in tears when she tasted this — I think she was disappointed that I wasted perfectly good marshmallows. But overall, this was a pretty good yam dish. While marshmallow mush just sweetens things up and isn’t very interesting, pineapple and marmalade provide a bright, citrus flavor that helps make the overall flavor complex and interesting. (Honestly, you could just leave out the yams and marshmallows, but then I guess this wouldn’t be Yam Bake, and we’d still be missing the letter “Y.”) It works pretty well for a summertime picnic!

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