Rural Mama's Sandbox

Where to start... I love sweet potatoes. I didn't always like them, but as an adult I love them. I had two in the fridge and was afraid they were going to go bad before I could do something with them, so I cut up and fried one with butter and brown sugar for lunch and decided I wanted to try something new with the other one. Even though I love sweet potatoes I don't really know much about different ways to prepare them so I decided to search for recipes. I came across a recipe for Sweet Potato Pie, which sounded so yummy, so I decided to give it a whirl. Reading through the recipe pages I learned a couple things about Sweet Potatoes that I never knew, one of the BIG things being "Don't refrigerate raw sweet potatoes, or they will develop a hard core and their flavor will deteriorate." GO figure, I never knew this and always put mine in the fridge!
I found this information as well as the recipe on Allrecipes.com
Ok, on to the actual recipe:

Ingredients

1 (1 pound) sweet potato
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust

Directions

Boil sweet potato whole in skin for 40 to 50 minutes, or until done. Run cold water over the sweet potato, and remove the skin.
Break apart sweet potato in a bowl. Add butter, and mix well with mixer. Stir in sugar, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth. Pour filling into an unbaked pie crust.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 to 60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Pie will puff up like a souffle, and then will sink down as it cools.

My Sweet Potato Pie BEFORE baking

A couple things to note... I had never boiled a whole Sweet Potato, skin included, before so I had NO idea that the skin would actually peel off after you boil it and rinse with cold water... it literally peels right off in big chunks, which I found SO cool and kind of fun! Something I forgot while I was getting my crust ready... I had a box of two Pilsbury unbaked pie crusts in the fridge that I decided to use, however, I forgot that they need to be room temperature BEFORE you try to unroll them, ended up murdering the first one trying to unroll it into my pie pan, so I threw the pieces out and waited for the second one to get to room temperature BEFORE I tried to unroll it into my pie pan. The second one turned out much more successful however when I poured the Sweet Potato filling in it went right up to the edge so was HOPING that it didn't overflow..

Halfway done in the oven and no overflowing.

As if making something for the first time isn't an adventure enough in itself, I'm pregnant and I have a 19 month old running around as well. So, my daughter was taking a nap through the boiling process, but woke up just before I got to the part where I needed to take the Sweet Potato out of the water, rinse, and pull the peel off. I get the peel off, break it apart, get the butter in and start the mixer. Along comes my baby girl asking for some "Goo" which is juice in her baby language. So, I stop the mixer, get her a cup of juice... normally I pay attention a little better, but I grabbed one of her sippy cups that isn't "spill proof" BIG mistake. Sometimes she is good with them, most times not. So, while I'm getting the other ingredients together and then starting to beat them with the mixer, my sweet angel is walking around the house shaking her juice upside down all over the floor. When she rushes past me in the kitchen I see her in the corner of my eye and instantly stop the mixer and dash to grab her cup. I picked her up and noticed her bum was soaked. She had made a nice little puddle in front of the TV and sat in it... fun! So, off to her room we went to strip down, wipe off, and get a new diaper on. I grabbed a towel from the bathroom really fast and walked it around the kitchen and living room to get the juice up off the floor. SO glad I don't have carpet! After I get my girl cleaned up and the floor dry I decided to finish up the pie really fast before anything else happened... which luckily it hasn't, yet... but I still have to mop up the floor, its a little on the sticky side. :o)