Since 1926, the Agricultural Review has been a free newspaper published by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. For many years, The Tar Heel Kitchen was a featured column written by the department’s marketing home economist. These recipes tended to be seasonal with just a handful of ingredients. We thought these recipes needed to be shared in a new format. The Tar Heel Kitchen post will unearth a few of these timeless recipes each month. This week we are looking back at the November 1993 issue and a recipe for a Thanksgiving staple: Sweet Potato Pie.
As you enjoy sweet potatoes as a side dish or a dessert this holiday season, you can feel good knowing that your sweet potato was most likely grown in North Carolina.
Our state ranks number one nationally in sweet potatoes and we also ship out an impressive 50 percent of what we grow to Europe and other countries that love sweet potatoes, too. The sweet potato even holds court as our official state vegetable.
Below is a winning sweet potato recipe from the November 1993 Agriculture Review. Instead of vanilla, like many sweet potato recipes call for, this one uses instant vanilla pudding. We tried this recipe in our test kitchen and thought it was a light and delicious dessert.
North Carolina Sweet Potato Pie
- 1-1/2 cup sweet potatoes
- ½ cup white sugar
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar
- 4 tablespoons butter
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ cup evaporated milk
- 1 large egg
- 5 tablespoons instant vanilla pudding
Cook sweet potatoes until done, peel and then beat with mixer until free of lumps. Add remainder of ingredients and beat well. Pour into 9-inch unbaked pie crust and bake at 450 for 10 minutes, lower baking temperature to 350 and continue cooking for 30 minutes.