Browned butter sweet potato pie

It is a running joke with all my friends and family that every recipe I have starts with a cube of butter. Well, it’s not really a joke but pretty much the truth. When I saw one of my favorite pie places in San Francisco had a browned butter sweet potato pie on its menu, I had to find out to make my own, and so googled the recipe.  I changed things around a little and made this version:

It was really good, but a whole pie is a bit much for Terry and me to consume on our own. My wonderful mail carrier delivered a box to my door on Saturday, and as a reward, I cut a slice for her and tucked it into a wax paper bag. Bless her heart, she left this note for me yesterday:

Since we have finished off the pie, I decided to make another banana pudding.

I made it with cream and a little bit of butter, not a whole cube. See? I can make something without starting with a cube of butter!

Still summer time here in California

Although it is officially autumn, our weather has felt more summer-like the past two days. Today it is 81 degrees at 1 p.m. We might hit 90 by 5. I turned on all the house fans today as I have been baking and will continue later this afternoon.

This morning I made a piecrust of ginger snaps, pecans, and oats. It baked for about 10 minutes. Then I poured in a mixture of browned butter, sweet potato, sugar, cream, eggs, and spices to make the most delicious pie. That had to bake for 20 minutes. A rib roast will be the last thing from my oven for dinner this evening. Another 100 minutes of heat coming from the oven and filling my kitchen air.

Due to the warm weather, I decided to clean the patio again, maybe for the last time this year. Of course, it could still be warm at Thanksgiving at the rate we are going with our seasons. We got our flu shots today, so we are ready when the cold weather does come.

A new Thanksgiving pie

Yesterday I made a pumpkin pie using a REAL pumpkin.  I had gotten a small pumpkin in our produce box and decided it was small enough for me to handle.  I cut it up and roasted it while reading the Sunday papers before heading to church.  Afterwards I scraped all the pulp out and stuck the bowl in the fridge.

In the meantime I started looking for pumpkin pie recipes.  For years I have bought a mix at Whole Foods to which all I added was eggs and cream.  Simple and delicious.  But I didn’t know how to make a pie from scratch.  Although I found pumpkin recipes, the one I decided to use was Mary McLeod Bethune‘s sweet potato pie recipe.  I just substituted the pumpkin pulp for the sweet potatoes and cut the recipe in thirds as Ms. Bethune’s recipe made three pies, pies she used to sell to raise money to keep her school open. 

The pie turned out very well, very tasty.  It’s texture is much different from the ones I’ve made with canned mix, but it’s very good.  Wonder if I could sell enough pies to keep a school open?

* I need to add that I found the sweet potato pie recipe in The Black Family Reunion Cookbook, published by The National Council of Negro Women, copyright 1991.