Sweet Potato Pie

I stopped by a local restaurant just before Thanksgiving, and they had sweet potato pie on the menu. Never having had it, I decided to order it and see what all the fuss was about. I was extremely disappointed. The pie was bland, and not sweet enough. But I could tell that with the right balance of spices, and a few tweaks, that pie would have been delicious. So I decided to make my own for Thanksgiving!

I started with this recipe:
www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/sweet-potato-pie-recipe3/index.html

I fully lazied it up, and used a pre-made pie crust. I was in a surly "not making a crust" mood. Plus there was an insane amount of cooking over two days, and pie crust got ranked as the least important. I think I could have improved the pre-made pie crust by brushing it with melted butter and sprinkling a cinnamon sugar mix on it. I'll try that next time.

I followed the recipe pretty much exactly. I used an 8-inch round pan with high sides. I forced the first half of the sweet potatoes through the fine mesh sieve, and then I decided that wasn't really worth it, and pureed the bejesus out of the rest of the sweet potato in my blender. Save yourself time and arm strength. Seriously.

As a finishing touch, to add a little bit of additional sweetness, and give it that good old southern look, I added a brown sugar crumble on the top. I took it from the following recipe: http://southernfood.about.com/od/applepies/r/bl50808a.htm

Made the topping and sprinkled it on before baking. I might recommend baking the pie for a few minutes and then adding the crumble, so that it doesn't sink into the top of the pie as much as mine did.

The toughest part of this was that I made it on Wednesday night, and wouldn't allow myself to eat any until Thanksgiving. SO HARD! But when I finally did get to eat it, it was AWESOME!

Overall, this was easy-peasy deliciousness. I thought it was much better than pumpkin pie, and this may be my new Thanksgiving contribution!