Today It was Sweet Potatoes

The cranberries were abandoned today so I could get the sweet potatoes done. United had them for 20¢ a pound last week. We bought some . .  not quite as much as we did the cranberries but the sweet potatoes needed to be done. We had baked sweet potatoes one day and I kept out two more to bake but the rest . . I think it was 17 pounds, will me made into sweet potato pies . . some day.

I figure after the peelings and bad spots were cut away, I’ll still get 17 – 18 pies.

That’s about all I need right there – sugar, milk, cinnamon and nutmeg. I could drink the contents of that pot!

I could have added more but I figured 32 eggs were enough.

That’s a pot full!

Here’s the plan:

1. This is enough to fill 8 trays for the freeze dryer. I have 8 trays but can only freeze dry 4 at a time.
2. Because this is more of a liquid, and because the freeze dryer sits with the back lower than the front for the water to drain out, I have to pre-freeze the trays of liquid in the household freezer. I had room in a freezer for 4 trays so I filled those, will let them freeze overnight, then stick them in the freeze dryer tomorrow morning.
3. I’m guessing that they’ll be ready to come out of the freeze dryer by Saturday evening.
4. Once I take the first batch of trays out of the freezer and put them into the freeze dryer, I’ll put the second set of trays into the household freezer so they’ll be ready to go into the freeze dryer on Sunday morning (or whenever the first batch is done).
5. Once it’s dried, I’ll break it all up into a powder and probably vacuum seal it in pint jars (because you know what’s in all my quart jars – cranberry juice!).

When it’s time to make the pie:

A lady on the freeze drying Facebook group tried this with pumpkin pie. She left out the milk and added it later. She put her powdered mix up in 5 oz. packages, added 2 cups of water and the milk and said it was great. I’m not so sure about that . . that’s a lot of liquid. I think since mine already has the milk in it, I’m going to start with 6 ounces of mix, add water til it gets to the consistency that it was before I freeze dried it, then add the butter, pour it into a pie shell, bake it, eat the whole pie to be sure I like it!  🙂

Once I know exactly how much powder it takes, I’ll put the rest of the powder up in those portions.

I think this is a great idea (but I think most all my crazy ideas are great ideas!) Any time I want a sweet potato pie, all I have to do is open a jar, add water, add melted butter, pour it into a pie shell and bake it. I also have the mini pie pans that makes enough for each of us to have two small pieces of pie. I can figure out how much it takes to fill one of those and put some of the powder in smaller jars with that amount.

I’ll report back when this experiment is done!