Candied Yams -- The Side Dish Donna Would Have Approved Of

February. The mainland states are buried. We had rain Tuesday. Ryan was on duty at Miramar. Standard week.

Caleb, 7, wants to be a firefighter still. Has not deviated. Hazel, 3, chaos incarnate. Put a peanut butter sandwich in the DVD player Wednesday. Showed zero remorse.

Cornbread in the cast iron. Jiffy mix doctored up. Don't @ me.

Donna would say: dinner at 1800, no exceptions. We did 1800.

I went to the commissary Saturday morning. Got the grocery haul under sixty bucks for the week, which is a small victory. The cashier knows me. We talked about her grandkids while she scanned the chicken thighs and the family-size box of pasta. Small-town energy on a Marine base in California.

Wednesday morning meal prep — Sunday afternoon, hours of containers. The freezer is full. The future-me thanks present-me. Donna taught me this routine. Donna's freezer was always full. Donna saved her sanity with quart bags labeled in Sharpie.

Donna sent a recipe card in the mail this week. She has been doing this for years. The recipes go in the binder. The binder is full. The newest one is for a green bean casserole that uses fresh green beans and fried shallots and which I will absolutely make for the next holiday.

I read the blog comments at the kitchen table with my coffee. A young spouse in Lejeune emailed me about deployment cooking. I wrote her back at length. I told her about the freezer. I told her about Donna. I told her she would survive. I sent her three of Donna's recipes.

I sat at the kitchen table Tuesday night writing in the journal. Volume 10 now. The handwriting has not gotten neater. The journals are a record of the life I am living, in the moment, in tiny script that I will look back on someday and not be able to read. That is okay. The writing was the thing.

I unpacked another box from storage Tuesday afternoon. Three years on this base and I am still finding things I packed in Twentynine Palms. Military-wife archeology — every box is a layer of geological history. I found a ceramic dish from Lejeune still wrapped in newspaper from 2020.

Reading another military memoir at night. They make Ryan tense. They steady me. We negotiate. He doesn't ask what I'm reading. I don't tell him. The arrangement works.

Caleb's school had a fundraiser this week. I baked cookies because I always bake cookies. The cookies were the standard chocolate chip. They sold out in twenty minutes. I am the cookie mom of this PTO and I have stopped fighting it.

The kids' soccer game was Saturday morning. The other parents brought oranges and Capri Suns. I brought a thermos of coffee for myself and a folding chair I bought at Target three years ago that has been to four duty stations now. The chair is a more loyal companion than some of my friends.

Dad called. He has been gardening. He is sending zucchini updates again. The PTSD is managed. He talks more than he used to. He is becoming his own version of healed, which I did not think was possible at fourteen.

I went for a walk Sunday morning before the kids got up. Half an hour. The fog was burning off. I needed it. Some weeks I get the walk in. Some weeks I don't. The week tells me which.

Ryan's friends came over Friday for a beer. I made wings and chips. They demolished both. Standard Marine appetite — they eat like they are still on rations. The kitchen looked like a battlefield by the end. They cleaned up. Marines clean up. Donna would have been impressed.

The cornbread was Jiffy mix with a little doctoring — and I won’t apologize for that — but what it really wanted beside it was something sweet and soft and unapologetically homey. Candied yams are the kind of dish Donna would have nodded at, labeled in Sharpie, and stacked in her freezer without a second thought. They go together with a week like this one: simple, reliable, and better than they have any right to be.

Candied Yams

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3 large yams (about 2 1/2 lbs), peeled and cut into 1-inch rounds
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows (optional, for topping)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
2. Layer the yams. Arrange the peeled and sliced yams in a single even layer in the prepared baking dish. Overlapping slightly is fine.
3. Make the glaze. In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Stir in both sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, orange juice, and vanilla extract. Stir until the sugars are mostly dissolved and the mixture is smooth, about 2–3 minutes. Remove from heat.
4. Coat the yams. Pour the glaze evenly over the yam slices, using a spoon or pastry brush to make sure all the pieces are well coated.
5. Bake covered. Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 25 minutes, until the yams are beginning to soften.
6. Bake uncovered. Remove the foil and continue baking for another 12–15 minutes, basting the yams with the pan glaze halfway through, until they are fork-tender and the sauce has thickened into a syrup.
7. Add marshmallows (optional). If using, scatter the miniature marshmallows over the top in the last 3–4 minutes of baking. Return to the oven until the marshmallows are puffed and golden. Watch closely — they brown fast.
8. Serve. Let the dish rest for 5 minutes before serving. Spoon the pan glaze over the top before bringing to the table.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 60g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 115mg