RT and I are visiting in mother in a small town in middle Georgia. RT owns some land here, and each day we’ve gone out in the woods and done some hiking. It has been a lot of fun. I have to say, though, that it has been so nice having his mother cook for us. Last night she made country fried steak with mashed potatoes, cornbread, cooked cabbage and rutabagas. The rutabagas didn’t tempt me at all. Ron loves them, and I let him have all he wanted. However, the rest of it was wonderful.

Today I helped Lillian get ready for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal. I learned one of her secrets. She asked me to make the layers for her coconut cake. I LOVE her coconut cake, and so you can imagine my surprise when she indicated a box of cake mix. Duncan Hines butter recipe golden cake mix. Yes, she used a cake mix. However, when I had followed the directions on the box, she added a quarter cup of sour cream - her secret ingredient to make a cake mix taste homemade.

Add 1/4 cup sour cream to a cake mix

The sour cream made it light - and the mix made three layers for her coconut cake. The frosting is thin - just sour cream, whipped cream, sugar and coconut. Here’s Lillian frosting the cake:

Lillian frosting the coconut cake

There was so much frosting left over, Lillian said, “Let’s make another cake!” So we did. For the second one, she switched it around a little bit and made a lemon cheese filling for the cake. Here is the final product for that endeavor:

Coconut Cake with Lemon Cheese Filling

I have to admit that I’m a sucker for my mother-in-law’s sweet potato souffle’. I’ve written about that souffle’ before - twice, as a matter of fact. So I asked Lillian if she planned on making sweet potato souffle’ for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner. She said that my niece’s aunt was going to make it. After I waxed eloquently for awhile about how it was my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal, she said that she might just make one herself, too.

She did. Fortunately for us but unfortunately for the Thanksgiving meal, the sweet potato souffle’ she made didn’t last the night. When she took it out of the oven, I asked her if I could go ahead and spoon out a little bit so it would look better for the photograph I wanted to take for this blog. And once that spoonful was taken out and put on a plate, we ended up adding it to tonight’s menu. It was right there, after all, and it looked so good, and there would be another one at Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow anyway.

My son and his wife arrived this evening to visit for a couple days, and he immediately had a couple of helpings with his dinner, and then took all that was left over with him to the barn apartment where they’re staying to eat for his breakfast tomorrow morning.

Sweet Potato Souffle

As I sit here writing this post, the turkey is in the oven, and there is that wonderful aroma permeating the house. Outside in an electric smoker, my brother-in-law Larry is smoking a couple of hams for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal. Earlier in the day - when I took the photograph below - there was also a small turkey breast in the smoker. The turkey breast was small enough to come out and go in the refrigerator until tomorrow. The hams are still smoking.

Hams and a turkey breast in an Electric Smoker

Here’s to Thanksgiving and all the delicious food!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 11:16 pm and is filed under Family, food/restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.