SWEET POTATO PIE RECIPE

My family sweet potato pie recipe is soul food at its best. It's delicious, nutritious (so long as you don't mind sugar with your Vitamin A) and sitting down for a slice with your loved ones or even all by yourself with a good cup of coffee is definitely good for the soul.

Southern Sweet Potato Pie Video.

Just to let you know this is a truly SOUTHERN style recipe. It's not fluffy but firm. I use Pet evaporated milk not condensed milk and i am not sure why anybody would want to make it any other way. I'm sure there are other recipes that are delicious but if I tried to change a single ingredient or do something like add pecans or walnuts, I expect that I would have a redneck rebellion on my hands.

MY SOUTHERN SWEET POTATO PIE RECIPE
10 cups thinly sliced sweet potatos
1/2 stick of butter or Blue Bonnet Margarine
2/3 cup plain white flour
1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
1 tsp of ground nutmeg
1 tsp of cinnamon
3 large eggs
1/2 cup Pet Evaporated Milk (or however much it takes to make the mixture the same consistency as cake batter)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 deep dish pie shells (unbaked)

Cover sliced sweet potatos with water in a large boiler. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook till potatos are soft which should take about 45 minutes give or take a few. Before you remove from the fire, take a test slice and mash to be sure it is "mashable" without leaving lumps. When soft and ready, drain well in a colander and return potatos to the large boiler.

Mash margarine and potatos together till margarine is melted and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the Pet milk until blended. (if you were looking for condensed milk you are looking for something other than my family sweet potato pie recipe, my friend).

In a separate bowl, combine sugar, flour, nutmeg and cinnamon mixing well. Pour this mixture on top of potato mixture and mix till well blended. Add one egg at a time mixing well after each. Last of all add the vanilla and stir.

Pour everything into 2 unbaked, deep dish pie shells.

Bake about 1 hour in a preheated 350 degree oven until the centers are firm.

PIE BAKING TIPS:
To keep the entire sweet potato pie recipe from ending up on the bottom of a hot oven and ruining your day, I put the filled pie shells on baking sheets and not directly on the oven racks.

To keep the edges of the pie shell from getting burned, I put strips of aluminum foil around the edges before I load the pies in the oven.

This is an OLD SOUTHERN FAMILY sweet potato pie recipe. Before my great grandmother passed away I made her give me approximate measurements for the ingredients and instructions. I am still amazed at how consistent her pies were considering that she never used a recipe book and did all of her baking on a wood stove.

I'm going to share more soul food recipes that I'm thinking of including on my Thanksgiving dinner menu, so y'all come back now!

MUSCADINE WINE RECIPE

NO PESTICIDES USED!


Hubby said I should share our old-fashioned, southern muscadine wine recipe after I told him that I had posted Gran's muscadine cobbler recipe. I was reluctant to do so not because of its secret ingrediants or because it's acidic and you have to acquire a taste for it. I didn't post it because all of the kids would have been in big trouble if we had ever so much as whispered out loud that somebody in the family had made wine or anything alcoholic.


This recipe for muscadine wine will produce a sweet version. If you want your wine to have more kick to it, some people add vodka.

OLD FASHIONED MUSCADINE WINE RECIPE


8 quarts of muscadine Grapes
8 pounds of granulated sugar
4 quarts of warm spring water (un-chlorinated)
1 package of dry yeast

Wash the muscadines and then one by one, mash the grapes in your fingers.

Pour the sugar in the warm water and stir still dissolved. Dip out a small amount in a cup and dissolve the yeast and pour it back into the main mixture.

Pour the liquid over the mashed muscadines.

Stir the muscadine mixture every day for a week.

Strain into a crock or churn that can be sealed and let sit for six weeks.

Strain mixture again and put in jars with the lids screwed on very loosely for the first few days (about 3) so that there's no chance of the jars exploding (ask me how I know!).

Tighten the jar lids and store in the cellar or a cool place.

A LITTLE BIT OF SOUTHERN HISTORY
The south, as I'm sure you know from watching old timey movies, has a reputation for making moonshine whiskey. But what you might not know is that for every man who had a still and made "shine" there was probably a wife who sang in the choir every Sunday that may have helped in the process to raise a little money to feed her children. The enterprise was necessary but shameful at the time and in the south, if you had relatives who made whiskey it is not something that is discussed.

The one and only reason that my grandmother shared her muscadine wine recipe with me is because she believed in its medicinal properties. And as muscadine grapes contain as much if not more resveratrol than grapes, it seems that she was right.

Return to Family Recipes, Babies and Parenting Issues to find more of my family's favorite recipes.

MAMA'S QUICK RECIPE FOR PEAR COBBLER

I call this Mama’s Quick recipe for pear cobbler because this was the dessert that was served when fresh pears were coming in by the bushel basket full and quick family meals were to be expected. After the crops were in and jars of canned fruit were lining the shelves, when a more relaxed pace fell in place we could look forward to pastries that took more time to produce. Another good thing about these pears is that I know they have never been treated with pesticide.

MAMA’S QUICK RECIPE FOR PEAR COBBLER


2 cups of peeled, sliced fresh pears 2 cups of sugar (1 ½ if using canned pears)
4 ounces of unsalted butter
¾ cup of plain flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup sweet milk
1 whole egg

Pour 1 cup of sugar over sliced pears in a bowl and set aside (if using canned pears, half the sugar and use a little syrup out of the jar). Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Melt your butter in a 2 qt oven proof baking dish either by placing dish in the oven or microwaving for a few seconds.

In a separate bowl, combine the remaining sugar with the rest of your dry ingredients including spices and salt (less a half cup of sugar if you chose to use canned pears) and mix well.

Beat the egg and sweet milk together with a spoon, pour over the dry ingredients and blend until a batter forms. Pour this batter over the butter that you melted WITHOUT STIRRING. Then pour your pears including syrup on top of your butter and batter, AGAIN WITHOUT STIRRING.

Bake your preheated oven for about an hour at 325 watching to see when batter (which has now miraculously risen to form the top crust) begins to brown.

Most cooks would leave it at this, but Mama would brush the top of the crust lightly with butter and sprinkle it with sugar which gave it better flavor. In my traditional southern home, more butter and sugar were added to practically every recipe.

Pies with rolled pastry were more time consuming than Mama’s quick recipe for pear cobbler and more visually showy but it would be impossible to find fault with the sweet, buttery filling of this easy pear dessert no matter whether what!

Return to Oooh Baby Parenting, Family and Environmental Issues to find more frugal southern recipes that include fresh fruit and produce.