Creole Sweet Potatoes and Apples (and Raisins and Pecans)

If you don't have a sweet potato recipe that uses no sugar, you want to try this one.

Creole sweet potatoes and apples doesn't have to be just for the winter holidays, like your grandma's syrupy concoction.  You can get plenty of vitamin A year-round with this dish of pure healthy goodness.

Looks good.  Tastes great  Good for you!

Ingredients:

3 average-size sweet potatoes or 2 large ones, washed, peeled, cut into 1" thick slices, and boiled
2 apples, washed and ready to peel
2 large handfuls of raisins
1/2 cup of crushed or ground pecans--I used walnuts
2-3 tablespoons butter
Cinnamon

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Butter or grease 2-quart deep baking dish.
Cover bottom of dish with about half of the sweet potato slices.
At this point, after the first layer of sweet potatoes are in the dish, add just enough water to barely cover the bottom of the dish--without the water, the apples won't cook.  Don't forget this step.
Cut first apple into quarters; then slice each quarter and drop slices over the first layer of sweet potatoes.
Add half the raisins and nuts, and dot with small pieces of butter cut from 1 tablespoon of it.
Repeat with the rest of the potatoes, apple, raisins, and nuts, and top with cinnamon and more small pieces of butter (about 2 tablespoons).

Dotted with butter and ready for the oven

Cover dish and bake 30-40 minutes.

Notes:  You can replace the butter with slices of ham on top to make a full meal deal, also good.  If you have orange rind in your freezer, as I always have, you can add 1/2 tsp. of that.  I'm thinking of adding chopped dates, but then the dish probably couldn't be called "creole scalloped sweet potatoes."

I conducted an experiment and made different scalloped sweet potato dishes, one after another, according to three recipes--one with oranges, one with pineapples, and this one.  I recommend just this creole scalloped sweet potatoes and apples casserole, but if you have fresh pineapple, you might try this recipe with pineapple--call it "Hawaiian sweet potatoes"--instead of apples.  (Canned pineapple has sugar, of course, and that ruins the feeling of well-being I get with veggie dishes.)  I've chosen creole baked sweet potatoes and apples as the only way I'll ever make baked sweet potatoes again.