...


JUST IN CASE YOU, DEAR READER, HAVE GOT A pie crust in your refrigerator that you took from your freezer more than a week ago because you needed the space for Thanksgiving leftovers which sat in the refrigerator too long for you to feel comfortable eating, and you weren't even sure that you should feed them to the cat, and henceforth consigned them to the freezer, where the guilt of letting perfectly good food go to waste will always freeze into oblivion... then...uh...what was I going to say?...Oh, yeah, then I suggest you get right to it and whip up a Sweet Potato Pie, because you know that crust is going to go bad in the back of the fridge atop the half-empty jar of capers you forgot you had, the year-old pickle relish, open jar of salsa and...well, never mind what else you might have in there...you'll have to throw it out, cause there's no longer room in the freezer.

Yes, that's what I'd suggest. It's as easy as pie, really. You can stop and pick up some of those good ole sweets on your way home from just about anywhere, provided you pass a supermarket. Pop them in the oven to bake along with just about anything, as long as it takes the better part of an hour. It's a simple matter to peel them right from the oven, just so you remember to lightly oil them ahead of the baking. Following that, if you haven't got the recipe handwritten for you in a looseleaf notebook your mother gave you fourteen years ago, you can have mine. No, no..(just the recipe!)... you can't have the notebook, Silly.


3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tab. melted margarine
1 Tab cornstarch
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups warm sweet potatoes
1 teas. lemon flavoring
1/2 teas. nutmeg
1 teas. cinnamon

Add sugar and margarine to beaten eggs. Put sweet potatoes through food mill and add milk and cornstarch. Combine all ingredients. Put in unbaked pie crust and bake at 400 (degrees) for 10 minutes then 350 (degrees) until set and browned.

(Approx. 25 min.)





Based on my latest use of this recipe--which, as luck would have it, was merely an hour ago--I feel I should offer these few suggestions to ensure an excellent gustatory experience for you after pulling the pie from the oven:

1. Please remember to measure out the sweet potatoes once they've been through the mill. It's best not to dump them willy-nilly into the bowl without a thought to how much mashed sweet potato you've got. If you think of measuring just after you've added the eggs and corn starch and sugar, and filled the bowl with milk, that is not a good time. You may wish to give a big sigh and hope for the best. I do not advise it, but I have no better suggestion...which is precisely why I caution you to keep your wits about you.



2. I suggest you not use the date sugar you may have purchased, on a whim, many months ago, in spite of the injunction on the bag: Use anywhere regular refined sugar is called for. Even if your slight qualms cause you to dump in a little of the white stuff later, it won't give you that good old regular refined taste.


3. And, perhaps most earnestly, I pray of thee, with oven-mitted hands, please do yourself a favor and don't neglect to add the melted butter. Should you make such an inexcusable error, you won't have the date sugar on which to blame the uninspired taste. In fact, it's possible you'd be perplexed for quite a while--after you'd tasted the pie and asked yourself whyever I'd give you such an insipid recipe. Uh, huh--you'd have to blame it on me, not knowing how downright delectable this pie should be.

You might sample it again because you'd think surely it should taste better than barely okay. You'd clean up the dishes, perhaps. Then, before you put your notebook away (notebook computer, of course) you'd possibly read over the recipe again. That's when you might have this to say: What a complete and utter nincompoop, I didn't add the butter!*



...
*(And I don't wish to have those words repeated. I want that pie to be so good you barely restrain yourself from eating half of it at very first taste, and then next morning you decide it makes the perfect breakfast. Yep, I want it to be so good you thank your lucky stars you read my post today. Although, hmm...it is only pie, after all--not chocolate truffle cheesecake, or double chocolate brownies, or chewy chocolate chip cookies, or...dear me, just add the butter--and don't expect too much, okay?!)


.