Sweet Potato Pie

Sweet Potato Pie 

(based on Better Homes and Garden recipe)

Ingredients:

1 pie shell

2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes or 1 can 17.2 ounce can sweet potatoes drained and mashed

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup buttermilk or daily sour cream

Instructions:

1.  Prepare pie shell

2.  In large bowl, stir together sweet potatoes, sugar, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and salt.

3.  Add eggs, beat lightly with fork.

4.  Gradually stir in buttermilk.

5.  Pour filling into prepared pie shell.

6.  Bake for 35 to 40 minutes at 375 degrees or until knife inserted near center comes out clean.

7.  Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes..  

8.  Cover and refrigerate within two hours.

9.  Enjoy

Mark's Notes:

I always use store bought pie shells.  Much easier.  I've only made 1 pie shell from scratch.

I decided to use fresh sweet potatoes rather than canned sweet potatoes.  I've never peeled, baked, or mashed sweet potatoes before.  I used the following website for some instructions on how to mash the sweet potatoes - 

http://www.wikihow.com/Cook-Sweet-Potatoes - I just followed the instructions on how to clean, peel, boil, and mash the potatoes - I did not prepare them for serving as sweet mashed potatoes for a side.

Peeling apples for an apple pie is actually more work than peeling a sweet potato.

I cleaned, peeled, cooked, and mashed 3 sweet potatoes.  That was close to 2 1/2 to maybe 3 cups rather than the specified 2 cups.  

I forgot to add the salt.  Still turned out fine.

Mark's Story:

Last week, I made a pumpkin pie.  Abby asked for a pumpkin pie, and so I made a pumpkin pie.  Then Trish asked me to make a sweet potato pie, and so I found a recipe for a sweet potato pie. When someone in my family asks me to bake something, I'm usually quite willing to make it happen.

Ratatouille

Ratatouille - serves 4 (from the Better Homes and Gardens 15th edition Cookbook)

Ingredients:

1/2 chopped onion (medium)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon vegetable oil or olive oil

3 cups cubed, peeled eggplant

1 medium zucchini or yellow squash, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/4 inch slices (1 1/2 cups)

1 cup chopped, peeled tomatoes (2 medium) or one 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, drained

3/4 cup chopped green sweet pepper (1 medium)

3 tablespoons chicken broth, vegetable broth, or dry white wine0

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon snipped fresh basil or oregano

Instructions:

1.  In large skillet, cook onion and garlic in hot oil over medium heat until onion is tender.

2.  Stir in eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, sweet pepper, chicken broth, salt and black pepper.

3.  Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer covered for 10 minutes (or until vegetables are tender).

4.  Uncover and cook about 5 more minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated.  Stir occasionally.

5.  Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

6.  Stir in basil or oregano just before serving.

7.  Enjoy.

Mark's Notes:

The kids and I were watching Ratatouille the other night.  After the movie, Abby asked if I could make Ratatouille for dinner.  So, I found a recipe.  This recipe is the Better Homes and Gardens recipe.  Trish and I went shopping for all the ingredients.  This is my first time making this recipe, so we kept it simple.  For the ingredients, we used the following:

Frozen chopped onions from the freezer section

Frozen chopped green peppers from the freezer section

Pre-cut yellow squash and zucchini from the refrigerated section (I used both)

I used the chicken broth

For the tomatoes, garlic, basil, and oregano, we found a 14.5 canned diced tomatoes seasoned with garlic, basil, and oregano, and so I did not add the garlic at the beginning or the basil at the end. These ingredients got added with the can of diced tomatoes.

We bought fresh eggplant

This is my first time working with fresh eggplant.  I washed it.  Cut the skin off.  Kept cutting it lengthwise until I had 1 inch strips. Then I cut those into little 1 inch cubes.  

Mark's Mistakes:

I put the onions in the skillet with no vegetable oil.  I quickly realized my mistake, took the onions out, put in the oil, heated the oil for awhile, then added the onions and proceeded.

I did not drain the 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes.  I just dumped the whole can in.  I didn't read the instructions carefully enough.

Then my worst mistake was instead of adding in 3 tablespoons of chicken broth, I added the entire can of chicken broth.  

As a result, it took longer than 15 minutes for all the juices to boil off.  It actually took closer to 25 minutes.  I didn't think much of the extra time to boil off the liquid until I started typing up the recipe for this blog, and then I realized my mistake.  It was still delicious.

End Results:

I liked it.  Trish loved it.  Miriam said she liked it even though she only took 4 bites and then claimed to be full from an earlier Nutella snack.  Abby took a few bites and said it was okay and proceeded to eat some chicken nuggets.

This is the first time I have ever made Ratatouille.  It is also the first time I have ever had Ratatouille.  I thought it was delicious.  Very much like a vegetable stew.  It did fill me up but I think this would be a better lunch rather than a dinner.  Trish thought it would make an excellent side for a larger meal.

This dish made the house smell so wonderful.  

I have lots of leftover vegetables.  I'll make this again fairly soon and pack this for my lunches.  I'll also remember to take a picture of it so that I can add a picture to this blog.

Miriam is watching the movie Ratatouille as I type this.  I need to get the soundtrack to this movie as there are some songs from Disney Pixar Ratatouille that would make wonderful additions to my cooking playlist.

Also, Abby and I are both working are way through Rosetta Stone's French language course.