Savoring Eliana: Sweet (and Savory) Potato Pie

Keeping a careful eye on the butter

With a continuous supply of sweet potatoes at the ready, I knew it was about time that I begin baking with those bad boys again. This time I wanted to take a pie approach, as you should often due when faced with a surplus of sugary vegetables. As you may very well know by now, I prefer my desserts chocolate and my pies savory.
This recipe comes from a little fellow I know. He is a pretty big fan of root vegetables and I'm sure he'd enjoy cheese if it didn't upset his tummy so. He was in charge on monitoring the butter to make sure it was at the ideal temperature for everything that was made this weekend. He did an excellent job and I think I shall have to keep him on the task force.

This is a super adaptable recipe for whatever you taste preference is. My palate prefers gingery-garilcky flavors so I made sure to add a lot of them into this.

Bake Temp: 350 F
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Bake Time: 40 minutes
On the Table In: 1 hour

Pie Crust
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), cold and chopped into 1/2 cubes
1 tbls apple cidar vinegar
3 tbls cold water (stick in freezer right now and it will be perfect!)

Filling
4-5 smaller sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced vertically to make circles
the top part of a butternut squash chopped into quarters
1 tbls chopped chives
1 tbls onion powder
1 tps cilantro
1 tbls ground ginger
2 cloves garlic, smooshed
1/3 cup sour cream
1 tsp lemon juice
1 1/2 cup cheese (cheddar is good)

Begin by making your pie dough. Cut butter into flour until it forms a thin crumble. mix in vinegar and water. Mix (preferably by hand) until dough comes together. Seran wrap and put in fridge.
Now make the filling. Steam the sweet potatoes and squash for 5 minutes.
How to Steam:
Place a metal strainer in a pot. Fill water about half an inch over the bottom of the strainer. Salt lightly. Place vegetables in. Heat up until water boils, cover and let steam for 5 minutes.
Good job.

Remove veggies from steamer. Sprinkle with chives, onion, cilantro, ginger and garlic. Mix gently so as not to smoosh anything.

In a separate bowl mix together sour cream and lemon juice. Set aside.

At this point the kitchen smelled pretty darn good, although that may be due in part to the crepes I was making for breakfast in the background. Mmmmm....nothing like Sunday Morning Crepes...

Take out your pie dough and split into two balls. One should be slightly smaller than the other. Roll out larger ball into a circle shape. Lay gently into pie dish (about 10 inch diameter) Make sure to have a little overhang. Because this is a relatively dry pie, you don't need to bake the bottom part ahead of time.

A lil overhang

Layer half the vegetable glop. Pour in the cheese. Layer the other half of veggie stuff. Pour the sour cream and lemon juice on top.

Roll out the second layer of pie dough. It should form a smaller circle. I like to sprinkle this with salt and pepper on one side. Plop the dough on top of everything. Using the overhang from the bottom pie dough, wrap to the upper pie dough and pinch together to form a nice tight seal.