Sunday, November 20, 2011

Sunday, With No Monday Following

K's school is on break all next week, so that means I don't have to get out of my nice, warm bed at 6:00am for seven more days.  Sooo nice. I can tolerate most anything, but having to get up at 6am on chilly and cold mornings about do me in.
So this is one Sunday I'm not spending dreading the next morning.

So my new Kindle Fire DID arrive Wednesday for my birthday. Nice, nice!
I've been playing with it alot (already ran the battery out twice, haha!), learning how to use it and, using it.

Back in the summer when we were gardening, J and his partner at the station planted some Sweet Potatoes. First year they've raised these, but I hope to plant some next year ourselves.

Sweet Potato Harvest
I was at my Mom's Wednesday, looking at her Thanksgiving dinner list and she had written down Sweet Potato Pie. Since I've never really known her to make SPP, I thought she meant what we call sweet potato souffle', which isn't really a souffle' I don't think.
Anyway, I told her I had some sweet taters that J had grown and I would make the souffle'.
Turned out, though, she had been talking about a SPP, she said my Dad had requested one. So I said okay, I'll bake him a sweet potato pie, too!

Never-even-minding that I don't know how. 

So I spent today on the 'net looking for SPP recipes.
I'm just your basic meat-and-potatoes kind of baker, I don't need/want all this extra sh!t added in to give it some sort of so-called gore-may flavoring. I personally don't like the taste of sweet potatoes, so I suspect all those fancy-pants chefs are really trying to disguise the taste of the sweet potatoes because they don't like them either.
But I don't have ground cloves or lemon zest or heavy cream in my cabinet, and I am baking it for someone who actually likes the taste of sweet potatoes and probably doesn't want them disguised with a bunch of spices.

I was really hoping to find a recipe that my Grannie used because that's the pie he would remember eating from his kidhood and like, whether it was plain or uber-spiced or what. But alas, the recipe book I have of hers has about everything but SPP.

Anyway, I picked a couple that sounded promising and decided I'd bake a couple and let them taste test it around here and tell me which - if any - of them are good.

This first one is really basic, which I liked because I had everything I needed already. Simply sweet potatoes, butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs, and milk. No spices of any sort.
So I'm concerned it may be a little too plain or bland.

Peeled, cubed, and boiled sweet potatoes until tender.
Added butter, sugar, milk, vanilla, egg yolks.
A couple recipes I read recommended separating the eggs
and beating the whites before adding to the mix. Seemed
like that would add some fluffy to it, so I gave it a try.
Check out my cool retro-style eggbeaters. I dunno, they may actually be retro. I just liked the blue color of the handles, and the fact that they were only 50¢ at the Salvation Army store we visited Thursday.

I used a Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust that I crimped along
the edges with a fork. 
Looks pretty anyway.
Since I don't like sweet potatoes, I couldn't taste test it myself...naturally I'd think it was nasty. So Ryan got to be the guinea pig. He said it was good.
I asked, really good, or just okay. He shrugged.
He said I could try one with the spices or whatever in it to compare, but this one was good.

I ended the pie experiment for today by getting into a fist-fight with the saran wrap I was trying to cover the pie with.

4 comments:

Amber said...

Looks delicious! I, too, am always volunteering myself to cook....things I've never cooked before. Like that time I tried to do frogmore stew. It took me three hours. THREE. And I had guests waiting. Who knew it would take that long to get a huge steamer pot to boil?!

What's your secret to getting your kids to sleep past 6??? Is there a magic button somewhere? :-D

Great post!

Melissa said...

Howdy, Amber! I have been enjoying reading your blog the past several days since I found you.

I know I fail at blog commenting. Often I'll write something, then think, ah, that sounds stupid, and delete it.
I do the same thing with blog posting a lot of times.

Yeah I wouldn't've known about the three hours for the frogmore (we know it as low-country boil), as far as I know stuff boils at the longest maybe half an hour.
I would have freaked out and called Pizza Hut, lol.

There is a magic thing that happens with kids, which some of the time is pretty nice, but other times you're pretty sure is Black, Evil magic. It's called Adolescence.

My kids (that are still at home) are 17 and 21.

The 21yo can sleep just about anytime, anywhere. We always tell him he has 'narcosleepy', lol.

The 17yo is usually more of an earlybird. I still send him to bed at 10pm (not that he always goes to sleep when he's supposed to) but he'll be up 5 or 6 am, playing his computer games before he has to go to school.
But even if/when he wakes up early he doesn't wake me up.

So it's nice they are old enough to be able to take care of themselves and not destroy/burn down the house and I can sleep in.
Which is apparently all the way to 7am, ha.

Amber said...

Nice to meet you, Melissa! You're welcome to lurk around my blog anytime you wish. :) I also don't judge comments - how could I? LOL, I'm the queen of overshare.

I know childhood passes quickly...but man, I miss sleep! I'm not sure I'll get more in their adolescence since, today, I had to tell my 2 year old, "Honey, dancing in your undies on a table is not something nice girls do." LOL, that girl, she keeps me on my toes!

Have a good night! I'm sure I'll be commenting soon!

Melissa said...

Aww, let her dance in her undies.
And be sure to video for hilarity/blackmail when she's a teenager, lol.

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