family recipe swap ~ sweet potato pie

The calendar says April, but May is already peeking around the corner ~ and May is always a busy month for our family with birthdays, early vacations and Mother’s Day in the mix. My blog friends and I are getting a head start and thought to do a quick blog hop today to share some family recipes ~ and maybe help with some Mother’s Day ideas too! Links to all the blogs are in the post, so you can visit them all. I’m sharing a southern tradition ~ my maternal grandmother’s favorite Sweet Potato Pie!

I’m doing this the way my grandmother would have, and she was the queen of aluminum pie pans. Living through the Depression and two world wars, she could NOT throw away an aluminum pan or piece of foil if it could be reused. We would tease her about all the dinner roll trays and pie pans, and she would say, “I’m teaching you girls to have saving ways”! So this pie is in an aluminum pan, just like grandmother would have made it.

I don’t think I ever saw her with a recipe card. She turned out a traditional Sunday dinner, and the whole family makes her vegetable soup, but she wasn’t much for baking. She was however, all about canning, preserving and saving anything and everything my granddaddy grew in his garden. She put up all sorts of vegetables, filled the chest freezer and made jam from cherries, peaches and figs. The only dessert we all know she loved was sweet potato pie ~ which probably also came from the garden.

Bluwatermom and I talked about grandmother’s cooking. If she had a piece of fried chicken and piece of sweet potato pie, she was a happy women. So I decided to revive grandmother’s pie and start filling in some missing family recipes. The kinds of recipes that have stories and have to be shared!

I compared lots of recipes online, and came away with a hybrid that I think is what grandmother made ~ and the first bite sold me! Tastes just like what I remember from her kitchen, and I think the aluminum pie pan is part of the magic! The recipe is at the end of the post ~ but first I want to introduce my Grandmother Nellie. Yep, this is Bluwatermom’s mother. I introduced my paternal grandmother in earlier posts here and here, and this is Grandmother Nellie’s first appearance ~ in time for Mother’s Day 2015!

This is how I always remember her. She had white hair at an early age, and I don’t remember her any other way. I liked this photo so much I used it on the recipe card I created for the pie recipe. Here’s the card I created with PicMonkey photo editing software. There’s a good tutorial on their site and I found this one from homecookingmemories.com to he helpful too! I’m going to use these recipe cards to fill in some missing family favorites and share them with family members.

If it was potluck Sunday at the church, Grandmother Nellie may have made two pies ~ one to keep and eat, and one to take. So I made two 8″ pies, in aluminum pans, and added the recipe card to a pie carrier for Bluwatermom ~ and a pink flower for good measure. 🙂 I think Grandmother would approve!

Here’s photo from my gallery wall of Grandmother Nellie and the three girls ~ me and my two older cousins, yes I’m the little in this photo ~ one Easter way back when. She loved a hat, gloves and her charm bracelet on Sunday’s. The flower I used on the pie carrier reminded me of this hat so it seems right. The second pie went into the freezer for now, and the carrier will go to Bluwatermom’s in a couple of weeks, and I have the first recipe card for missing family favorites!

My recipe is just below and check out what my friends are sharing! Visit their blogs for more recipes, stories and great ideas ~~~ Angie at The Altered Past ~ Lisa at Concord Cottage ~ CoCo at The Crowned Goat ~ Vicki and Jenn at 2 Bees in a Pod. Fabulous women all, great supportive friends and awesome recipes! Yay for blog hops!

Sweet Potato Pie
1½ cups canned sweet potatoes or 2 to 3 roasted, peeled and pureed sweet potatoes {I actually boiled mine on the stove. Roasting or boiling works fine.}
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
½ cup milk {I used canned evaporated milk, because Grandmother did}
2 eggs
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 nine inch unbaked pie crust {I made 2 smaller pies and had enough filling for both.}

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 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.

Glad to introduce my Grandmother Nellie and share her Sweet Potato Pie. I’ve got a head start on Mother’s Day, now to figure out all those May birthdays! I’m thinking Lisa’s cupcakes could do the trick! Yay for blog hops ~ check them all out!