Sweeeeeeet Potato Oranges!

These sweet potato oranges recipe is available here.
It was a lovely twist on your standard sweet potato casserole. Sadly, my family didn't get to enjoy these delights as my Grandma was already bringing the sweet potato side dish and as everyone knows, you don't argue with Grandma! What Grandma wants to cook, Grandma Cooks!
So instead for this Thanksgiving I made the turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and the cranberry relish. I let Grandma bring the rest.
Because of this, I had to wait until all the holiday leftovers were gone before I could try out this recipe.
Now I have to say, that I am definitely the cooking rebel in this group and I basically never follow directions to the letter, unless it's Gourmet, because Gourmet magazine could do NO wrong in my book.
But Allrecipes.com, let's just say that one should ALWAYS read at least 10-15 reviews BEFORE you start trying to recipe out. The collective communal cooking wisdom is usually spot on.
I was just not feeling the digging out of the oranges, so I made a few changes.
1.I added 2 TB of OJ concentrate to the dish, instead of juice. I wanted a larger punch of orange flavor.
2. I grated about 1/2 of the orange zest off of the rind and added it to the sweet potato mixture, instead of placing the mixture into the orange halves.
3. Added a 1/4-1/2 tsp of cardamom spice AND 1/2 to 1 tsp of cinnamon to both the sweet potato mixture and the brown sugar/pecan topping.
4. Baked in a 9x13 pan as a casserole instead of in the orange halves. (I have a 20 month old, my time in the kitchen is at a premium ;)

I felt like these three changes really helped pop the flavor of the sweet potatoes.

Next time however, I will be cutting the sugar down, maybe not even adding any as I increased the OJ concentrate and this dish turned out to be more of a SWEEEEET potato casserole that I had intended. But this recipe, can THROWN-DOWN with any other sweet potato casserole recipe out there. I guarantee.
Any finally, I just have to rave for a quick second about the praliney, brown sugary, precany topping. I have never added flour to my standard praline type mixtures and I must say that I will be doing so from now on.
When this topping first went on and was originally baked, the topping was all crunchy and nutty, just like a good pecan topping should be.
However, in subsequent re-heatings in the microwave and I think the moisture from just sitting on top of the sweet potatoes themselves, the topping was not able to hold up and instead turned into a brownsugar swirl if you will.
Still absolutely stunning and in some ways, much easier to eat, but not crunchy like the first go around. Just a heads up.

Overall, I really enjoyed the potatoes, which was a good thing as we had an entire 9x13 to get through between the 2 of us!
I will be adding this to my recipe pile and making this one again.