I baked today. In fact, I’m still baking. And I need to check on my pies – the last thing I need is burned pie after all that effort.
So far so good. Now, at least. I was up to my elbows in pie filling about an hour ago. I pulled up my recipe (yes, MY recipe – eleven Thanksgivings ago, I experimented until I came up with the ideal sweet potato pie recipe), checked that I had everything to make two pies (I had double the ingredients listed in my recipe), and threw the sweet potatoes (I got them before breakfast this morning) into a pot to boil. All EIGHT largish sweet potatoes, because my recipe called for four. They boiled forever, and then they cooled, and then I got my mixer out. I peeled four of them, put them in the mixer, and realized that was about all that would fit. Okay, no problem, I’ll just get one pie ready, then do the second. I mixed everything together, pulled out my pie crusts (I make pie filling, not pie crusts), filled one of them, and realized I had enough filling left in the bowl for a whole ‘nother pie. What? So I filled the second pie crust. (I may have overfilled it a little.) Then I looked at the other FOUR giant sweet potatoes that were sitting there in the pot, already cooked, just waiting to be peeled and turned into pie. I had one more pie crust because I always buy one extra (I usually have enough filling left over for a little pie), but that clearly wasn’t going to be enough. I put the two pies that were ready to go into the oven, shoved the dogs into the backyard so they wouldn’t be tempted to counter-surf for drops of pie filling, and raced to the nearest grocery store for another pie crust. (I get nervous leaving the house with the oven on.) I got there, picked up one crust, grabbed a set of six mini-pie crusts (perfect for that little bit of filling left over, right?), and raced back home. Nothing burned down, so I made the rest of the pie filling. Turns out those last four sweet potatoes were ALL bigger than the first four, so after I filled the other two regular size pie crusts, I had enough filling left in the bowl for at least another whole pie. No more whole crusts, though, so I filled the six little mini crusts and called my neighbor Beth. “Anyone in the family allergic to pie? No? Wonderful! ‘Cause I seem to have vastly overestimated how many sweet potatoes I needed to cook.” She opted for the mini pies, so John and I are now discussing who we’re giving the fourth pie to. (We’re keeping one, and two are slated for Thanksgiving dessert.) It has to be someone we’ll see in the next day or two, so it’ll either be a work friend or another neighbor. Tough choices to make.
Anyway, I have now added the crucial information that was missing from my recipe. My sweet potato pie recipe, as written, makes TWO pies. Never forget.
