The traditional Sweet Potato Bake, topped with gooey browned marshmallows, has become a Thanksgiving tradition—especially if you have kids.

But recipes are now geared toward more adult tastes, be it Creamy Vanilla Sweet Potatoes or Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Apples with Pecan Streusel Topping.

Bananas add a touch of the exotic—and a nutritional boost—to today’s Caribbean-inspired recipe. Prep time is 20 minutes, bake time is 40 minutes, and all of the ingredients should be available at a well-stocked natural and organic food store.

Hosting a formal holiday dinner with multiple courses?

Follow these place-setting rules from the pros:

1. Always work from the outside in. The fork on the extreme outside is the one used for the first course. The same applies to glassware and cutlery.

If you’re a fan of TV cooking competitions, you know cheftestants sometimes do themselves in by going overboard with ingredients. Judges remind them to simplify their dishes and allow natural flavors to shine through.

Chef Michael Chiarello, a finalist on the first season of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters and owner of Bottega Napa Valley, gets it. Simplicity trumps fussiness, and his food is clean and elegant. (Check out his recipes for Radicchio Salad and Home-Style Minestrone.)

As noted yesterday, the roasting process is ideal for winter squash, as the vegetable’s natural sugars caramelize as it cooks. Add some organic butter, salt and pepper, and you have an easy-to-prepare side dish for your Thanksgiving table.

’Tis the season to buy winter squash at your local natural and organic food store or farmers’ market.

Whether you select the acorn, buttercup, butternut (above) or Hubbard variety, you’ll enjoy numerous health benefits, as well as a tasty entree or side dish.

Let’s review the four basic ways to get cooking.

1. Bake/Roast

This method is super-delicious because it caramelizes a squash’s natural sugars:

If you’re squeamish about eating Brussels sprouts, we have the solution:

1. Learn to prepare them in cheftastic ways.
2. Add savory organic ingredients like lemon juice, fresh parsley and Parmesan cheese—three wonderful components of Tuscan cuisine.

When I first started blogging for OrganicAuthority in November 2005, I posted The Story My Mother Doesn’t Want You to Read. I was gearing up for Thanksgiving, and I wanted to share my traumatic Brussels sprouts memories from childhood. (Apparently, the kids in the above photo are channeling my angst.)

As it turns out, Brussels sprouts became one of my favorite fall vegetables—much maligned because people simply don’t know how to cook them. Roasting them to crisp perfection is my favorite approach. You can also:

1. Bake them with cheese: Cavolini de Bruxelles Gratinati (recipe from cookbook author Maria Liberati, right)

Sweet potatoes and vanilla are a perfect pairing, as demonstrated by:

1. Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Cinnamon Pecan Crunch
2. Sweet Potato Pie Smoothies
3. Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Apples with Pecan Streusel Topping
4. Sweet Potato Bundt Cake

In each recipe, vanilla enhances the orange veggie’s inherent sweetness.

I’m adding a new recipe to the oeuvre: a smooth, creamy holiday side dish that incorporates the richness of cream cheese and butter, the sweetness of maple syrup, and the decadence of smoky bacon. (Vegetarians can easily omit the bacon.)

All of the ingredients should be available at your local natural and organic food store.

Creamy Vanilla Sweet Potatoes

Makes 6 servings

• 4 medium sweet potatoes
• Canola oil
• 2 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup real maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract (see notes)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 5 strips bacon, crisp-cooked and crumbled

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Wash sweet potatoes, and lightly coat skins with canola oil. Pierce each potato several times with a fork. Place them on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, or until fork-tender.
2. Cut the hot potatoes into halves. Scoop the pulp into a mixing bowl, discarding the skins. Beat at medium speed for 1 minute using an electric mixer.
3. Add cream cheese, butter, syrup, vanilla extract, salt and pepper. Whip until creamy.
4. Spoon whipped potatoes into six ramekins coated with nonstick cooking spray, and top with the bacon. Place ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for 5 to 8 minutes, or until heated through.

Recipe and photo courtesy of Nielsen-Massey

Dear Mom & Dad:

So, this is my first Turkey Day! Seems like a great opportunity to scavenge for whatever drops off the kitchen counter. I’m so there!

But Dr. Ron DeHaven, CEO of the American Veterinary Medical Association, is pooping on my organic poultry parade.

“This is the time of year that many veterinary hospitals report more emergency calls than any other time,” he says. “Often, this is associated with your pets getting into food that they simply shouldn’t have. Consider the dog that gets into that turkey carcass. Because of the high fat content, this can cause a really serious condition called pancreatitis.”

Dr. Ron is really beginning to bug me.

 “Many of the worst poisonings during the holiday season occur when we’re not at home,” he adds. “Be sure after Thanksgiving dinner that you put that turkey carcass out in the trash, well out of reach of your pets.

“Also consider wrapped candies or foods that may be in holiday packages. Your pets have sensitive noses, so they could get into those things. If that happens while you’re not home, you wouldn’t be there to help them.”

C’mon, Mom, what’s next? Is Dr. Ron going to take away the furry slippers I steal? I want turkey! Today! Hurry! Aaargh!

No one’s listening to me. Whatever.

Happy freakin’ Thanksgiving. You’d better hide your socks.

The Charlie Chronicles

• Leaky Puppies
• You Can Lead a Dog to Water…
• Dogs Go Organic

By Lucian Cade

If you’re like me, you spent most of your childhood being called an ungrateful little brat for some reason or another.

The problem is, as a kid you never quite understood it. When Mom or Dad said that you needed to finish your pea soup because kids in Africa were starving, all you could think about was how it was pea soup—and there was no way you’d suffer through such a horrible ordeal.

Once we grow up, we usually begin to understand that there are a lot of things to be grateful for. At least on a grand scale, most of us realize at some point or another that our parents were right, as usual. So, once in a while, we may give thanks for the big, unexpected successes that come our way. But as usual for high achievers, in order to become one of them you have to take this gratefulness a step further.

A saying I recently heard that will stick with me for a very long time is that “the enlightened give thanks for that which others take for granted.” As with most truths, it is very simple and yet very profound. I have never met or even heard of a person who has experienced overwhelming, or even moderate, success in his or her life who hasn’t dedicated some time each day to giving thanks for what he/she already has—and make no mistake, we all have plenty to be grateful for already.

Gratitude is key to achieving any level of success or fulfillment simply because, even if you achieve success, you won’t enjoy it in the least if you’re not used to being grateful for what you have.

This is why I call it the “Breakfast of Champions,” and hopefully Wheaties won’t sue me. But gratitude trumps whole-grain flakes any day in my book. I’ve mentioned it many times in other articles, but if you haven’t already done so, you need to get into the habit of giving thanks each and every day.

Find a way to do it; there are plenty of ways. Some people use journals, some put a reminder on their dashboard, and some use Lee Brower’s idea and keep a gratitude rock in their pocket. Every time they touch the rock, they remember to be grateful for what they have.

Regardless of how it affects your success, I strongly believe being grateful every day is crucial to even your basic happiness. As I said before, you can accumulate any amount of success or wealth you want, but without gratitude it will feel empty; you’ll always seek more and never appreciate what you have until you lose it all and have to start from scratch. 

The simple fact is, though, that gratitude does affect your success in a wonderful way. Because of the now very famous Law of Attraction we’ve all heard about, we understand that being grateful puts you in a state of mind that attracts more into your life for you to be grateful for. The opposite—basically being that spoiled brat my parents always used to call me—is detrimental to your success. 

Lacking gratitude is like a roadblock that keeps all the good you’re trying to attract from coming into your life. If you’re not grateful, then you’re shooting yourself in the foot!

Make sure to take time each day to be grateful for your lot in life. Be it your family, your friends, heating and air-conditioning, an apartment to live in or even just the fact that you’re alive, there is always something to be grateful for. And as you take a moment each day and give thanks, you’ll make more room for good to flow into your life.

After a while, you’ll realize that being grateful isn’t an exercise anymore, but a lifestyle you’ve chosen that is guaranteed to leave you fulfilled and happy—the loftiest of all goals.

Lucian Cade is an entrepreneur and cofounder of  Visionskape LLC, with his brother and business partner, Tristan Cade. When he is not pursuing athletic or academic endeavors, he spends all of his time studying and seeking a deeper understanding of how the law of attraction, and its brother and sister laws of the universe, pertains to self-improvement and human potential.

You’ve just learned how being grateful is crucial not only to your success, but to your basic happiness. Find the resources you need to manifest the life of your dreams in record time by picking up a free copy of Wallace D. Wattles’ classic, The Science of Getting Rich.

Starbucks and other coffeehouses are trotting out their high-calorie winter beverage menu. 

A 12-oz. (Tall) Starbucks Peppermint Mocha made with soy milk has 250 calories, not counting whipped cream (add another 70 calories). A 12-oz. Gingerbread Latte, even with nonfat milk, has 150 calories—220 with whipped cream. You really don’t want to know the calorie count in the full-fat versions. Trust me. 

Save money and calories with today’s Pumpkin Latte, which has only 80 calories per serving. 

The key is smart substitutions, says Jenny Harper, senior culinary specialist for the Nestlé Test Kitchens. In today’s recipe, she blends low-fat dairy with a nutrient-dense ingredient like pumpkin. 

Best of all, the ingredients should be readily available at your local natural and organic food store. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Latte

Makes 2 servings (8 ounces each)

1. Combine coffee, evaporated milk, pumpkin, sugar and pumpkin pie spice in a 2-cup microwave-safe glass measure or small saucepan.
2. Heat until very hot. (If using the stove, select medium-low heat and stir occasionally.)
3. Carefully pour into mugs.

Want a Foamy Top? 

Prepare recipe as directed. Then, carefully transfer the hot mixture into a blender container. Cover with lid, and hold it down with a folded towel or potholder. Blend for 1 minute.

Nutrition Facts per Serving: 80 calories, 0 g total fat (0 g saturated fat), 0 mg cholesterol, 90 mg sodium, 14 g carbohydrate,  1 g fiber,  12 g sugar,  5 g protein,  80% vitamin A, 20% calcium

Recipe and photo courtesy of Nestlé