Tasty Tuesdays - Whipped Sweet Potatoes with Bananas and Brown Sugar

So I imagine that those of you who will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner have already begun thinking about your menu for the big day. A few years ago, I did a ton of recipe research and put together our menu that has now become a tradition. I found the hardest thing to plan was having enough of the right pots/pans/baking dishes/oven space for everything, so I found recipes that made the most efficient use of our kitchen and our time. If you want to know how ridiculously OCD I am about some things, I even prepared an excel spreadsheet that given any supper start time will back you in to when you need to begin each dish.

I thought that over the next few weeks, I'd share the recipes that make up our menu! The menu is as follows:

Apps: Blue Cheese and Walnut Puff Pastry Pinwheels; Spiced Nuts

Poultry: Roasted Turkey with Creamy Turkey Gravy

Starches: Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Bananas and Brown Sugar; Cornbread Stuffing with Sausage, Mushrooms, and Pecans

Veggies: Slow Cooked Green Beans with Bacon and Onions; Cranberry and Mandarin Orange Jello Mold

Dessert: Pumpkin Pie and Pecan Tartlets

Drinks: Spiced Apple Cider, Prosecco

I'll start you off with my favorite dish, the Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Banana and Brown Sugar. It is so delish that it could actually be listed as a dessert!

Ingredients
5 medium sweet potatoes, scrubbed
4 bananas, unpeeled
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar

Kosher salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups pecans, chopped
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Prick the sweet potatoes all over with a fork, put them in a roasting pan and roast for 30 minutes. Toss the bananas into the pan and continue roasting for 10 to 15 minutes, until both the bananas and potatoes are very soft. Remove the pan from the oven but don't turn the oven off.
When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, scoop out the flesh into a large mixing bowl. Peel the bananas and add them to the bowl along with 1 stick of the butter, and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Season with salt and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until everything's well combined and the mixture is fluffy. Spoon into an oven-proof serving bowl and smooth the top.
In a separate mixing bowl, use your fingers to rub together the remaining stick of butter, the brown sugar, flour, and pecans until the mixture is the consistency of coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the crumb mixture over the sweet potatoes and return to the oven. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the crumbs are golden. Serve hot

**I add a layer of mini marshmallows and bake an additional five minutes until the marshmallows are browned. I highly recommend this step!!

***You can prepare this the night before and bake it off about 25 minutes before you're ready to serve.