It's Officially Pie Day

Back around Thanksgiving, I seriously wanted a pie that I could safely consume. Looking through online recipes I found one of my favorite pies: sweet potato. The recipe I used can be found at The Witchy Kitchen: Vegan Sweet Potato Pie. 

My friend, who shall be nicknamed Pyro, had decided to surprise me with a Hannah-friendly pie. So Friday the 23^rd of November officially became Pie Day. I was souped.

The Boy also hung out that day (sadly he did not get to fully join our festivities; he does not like sweet potato and he was gone by the time Pyro’s pie was ready). While I baked my pie he had the idea to finally try out the new donut pan I’d bought a few weeks earlier. Awesome right? I have a boyfriend who LIKES to bake and cook. Plus! He wanted to make the recipe I had found, peanut butter donuts. This new adventure made Pie Day ten times more fun.

As for my sweet potato pie, I followed the recipe as is. I like to the first time I make something to see what the original is like, the next few times I’ll start playing with it. Like for this, next time I may add some peanut butter to the filling itself. For me, you can just never have too much peanut butter.

The pie did take most of the day to make. I didn’t mind though, I got to spend the day cooking. It may be important to say that my day started at 10:30am…so…yea, that might have had something to do with the time frame.

It wasn’t hard work, just a lot of baking and cooling. For the most part the hardest thing was probably making the sweet potato as smooth as possible. But once again, I wasn’t using an electric mixer or anything, just a trusty old fork.

Making the pie basically goes as follows:

1) Bake the sweet potatoes; let cool

2) Make crust out of oats, pecans, dates, oil, water, and peanut butter; stick in fridge

3) Peel and mash potatoes till smooth; then to potatoes, add sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and mix together

4) Then add milk (substituted almond milk), yogurt (substituted coconut yogurt), and vanilla

5) Pour mixture into the pie crust and bake again; then let cool for a couple hours

See? Simple stuff, just takes time. All the best things do.

In fact, the pie was quite tasty. I love sweet potato pie, so this Thanksgiving I was extremely thankful for this recipe.

The donuts…were more of an experiment. The Boy and I didn’t have all the ingredients for the original recipe. So, we did what the best experiments call for, we improvised. 

Pyro was nervous about our end result. But honestly, the improvisation worked out just fine. However, the minor detail that I had previously used basically all of our measuring utensils that morning and the night before…That made it a little difficult.

Most of our eyeballing worked, except for one. Baking powder.

I knew we shouldn’t have eyeballed baking powder. But what else we were supposed to do?

(Sure I could have cleaned off one of the teaspoon measures, but really, that just seemed like the easy way out.)

On the bright side, we underestimated. The first donuts tasted wonderful, just didn’t rise correctly.

The next few tasted just as good AND rose to a nice fluffy height. 

Later on, the feasting commenced later in the day on Official Pie Day. Pyro came over after he ran a few errands; he had made a yogurt and whipped cream (oil based so I could eat it) pie. It has to refrigerate for a while. So we did our own improvisation and stuck it in the freezer.

I was quite impatient.

I wanted pie.

The Boy had to leave, but Pyro and I stayed dining and talking over two distinct and tasteful pies.

Conclusion: Official Pie will definitely become a tradition.

To Eat or To Not Eat The Sweet Potato...

All in all, I’m quite thankful this year. I’ve probably had one of the best years of my life. There have been some ups an downs, but with my new diet my stomach has been evening out. School this year (so far) has been so much less stressful than my first. I’ve gotten closer to friends, met a great guy (The Boy). I’m back at a church where I am happy and am growing in my walk with Christ. Plus, with this new writing adventure, I get to share the fun I have with food with anyone who cares to listen. In other words, I’m a happy camper.

Mmmm and now with Thanksgiving now over, I can thankfully enjoy leftovers for a few days.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I love my family and I love food, what’s a better mix of the two than Thanksgiving?? Plus, there’s no presents. Which means no pressure about getting the right gift or the apprehension about if every body has something to open or the gifts are of equal worth for everyone. Also, without gifts, you get to focus on what the holiday is truly about. Not getting or giving stuff, but just honestly and sincerely giving thanks. For me and my family it’s about giving thanks to God and to each other. But even if you’re not religious, just being thankful in general and to those around you.

I like no pressure holidays.

Then…Then there’s the food. A good home-cooked meal from Grandma can never go wrong (okay, well a certain Shepherd’s pie incident in our family proves that statement false, but let’s say just for most of the time).

This year, I was really afraid of over eating. As careful as I am it’s a major problem for me. If there’s food there, and I like it, I’ll eat. And eat. And eat. Then of course my blood sugar and my stomach gurgle and scream and throw fits till my brain finally kicks in and tells me to stop. So with all my stomach problems over the past few years, I was nervous.

Especially when it came to the sweet potato casserole.

I LOVE sweet potato.

My grandma knows this, so each year she makes this succulent sweet potato casserole (no marshmallows). I kind of always knew it wasn’t Hannah-friendly, but I indulged anyways. But this year she’d lost her recipe. I found an opportunity to find another that was safe for me, but she had already found a recipe and began to make it. I didn’t feel like intruding.

Now I KNEW it wasn’t Hannah-friendly. I couldn’t leave the maybe of it as justification for my indulgence. So I was quite torn. I’d made a mental map for what I would eat and what I wouldn’t the night before to help with the over eating. I just couldn’t decide about the sweet potato.

Finally, I chose to just use a dairy relief pill (I use them occasionally, but normally I try to just avoid dairy) and suck it up about the little amount of white flour in the pecan topping.

…So I cheated a little.

But oh wow was it worth it!!

I also had chocolate pudding for dessert (most DEFINITELY not Hannah-friendly). I’m sure it was just the classic Jell-O instant pudding, however, this classic had not been enjoyed by my taste buds since I was kid. It was the perfect compliment to my Thanksgiving Day meal.

Butternut squash, sweet potato casserole, turnips, honey-glazed carrots, deviled eggs, and of course, turkey and gravy. (And obviously there were seconds to be had.) Things on the table I did not touch were the white potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and the bread.

Later in the night, I realized that I had made it through the entire day without a giant sugar drop (which usually results in an emotional breakdown), without severe stomach pain, or overwhelming remorse about the amount of food I ate. I’m so thankful for God helping me find this new diet and helping me through me improve my mentality towards myself.

Combining the amazing food, my happily stuffed stomach, and an overall pleasant family dinner, this ranks in one of the best Thanksgivings so far.