Candied Sweet Potatoes

I had never met a person, let alone any man, that did not love prepared sweet potatoes.  And then, I met my husband.  We had just barely begun dating in the middle of the fall time and so, went solo to each of our family's Thanksgiving dinners.  He went to his Mother's for this holiday dinner and I was cooking up my first ever Thanksgiving dinner, completely on my own, for my entire family.  So, it was not until the following year that he and I had finally had our first Thanksgiving dinner together.  And that year it just happened to be back at my Mother's home.  As I was making all of our plates, at this time it was just Rich, Kalena, Kiley and me-Paige may have been in my belly, but I am not sure.  And Parker was just a dream away for Rich at this time.  Well, anyways, I was making all of our plates which was simple too at this time,  because this was before the girls had decided to change their lives and become hard-core vegetarians, which I admire and respect by the way.  But anyways, like I was saying, I was making up their plates and Rich was hoovering behind me, he was so cute-still new to the 'Family' and unsure of what to do with himself I think.  He watched me pile up all kinds of fixing's that my Mother made by scratch just for us onto his plate.  But, when I dug into her Candied Sweet Potatoes he stopped me with a "I don't eat sweet potatoes".  And boy did this ever stop me.  I was kind of confused I guess, because I had never met anyone who didn't just love them let alone love my family's version of them.  He had said that his family did not serve sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner and basically he had never ever had them prepared like this or actually never even had them really prepared anyway at all.  Well, I thought, you are gonna try them and like them today I bet.  But, of course still playing nicey nice and being on my very best girlfriend behavior-I still hadn't completely snatched him all the way up yet of course, I turned and smiled sweetly at him.  I told him that he would just have to try one bite of them and if he did not like them then he did not have to have anymore.  The funny thing is that this is exactly what my parents said to me as a child, here I was saying it to my future husband and I am still saying it to all of our children just about every day.  But, again back to the story, so being new and probably feeling awkward, because literally I think that the entire room stopped and stared at him like a whole mess of  deer caught in the headlights when he said that he didn't eat sweet potatoes, he smiled and said ok as I had already placed a heaping scoop of them on his already piled a mile high plate.  And as we sat at the table, each of us lost in a pleasurable eating frenzy, I gazed down next to me at his plate.  Mind you that my husband eats one thing on his plate usually at a time, where as I am a psychotic rotator of tastes.  Anyways, I gazed down at his plate to see that the very first thing that he ate was his sweet potatoes.  Every single bit.

4 large or 2 lbs. of sweet potatoes (peeled and 1/4'd lengthwise then thickly chopped)
sea salt
1/4 cup of light brown sugar (packed)
4 T. of real un-salted butter (chopped into tiny cubes)
1/4 tsp. of ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. of ground cinnamon
1/4 cup of pecans (chopped)
3/4 cup of mini marshmallows

-Preheat your oven to 375*.  Start a large stockpot of water for a boil.  Once it has reached a rapid boil, stir in a dash of salt and carefully add in your potatoes; cover and boil for about 12 minutes.  Strain the potatoes well and place them in a a large 2 qt. baking dish (I used stoneware), dot with the butter cubes and sprinkle on the nutmeg and the cinnamon.  Bake it uncovered for about 35 minutes, stopping and stirring it about 1/2 way through.  Remove it from the oven and sprinkle the pecans on and cover it all with the marshmallows; return it to the oven and bake for about 5 more minutes or until the marshmallows have a tinge of color to them.  Serves 6.  Enjoy!