Making one of these has been on my to-do list for years! This is a first try — it was also my first time making a pie in several years. The flavor was as good as a normal sweet potato pie but nothing unique. But that color was the entire point.

I had wanted the filling to be perfectly blended, but after seeing the finished product I quite like the color contrast, and it's nice to see bits of unadulterated, deep purple potato.

I used my standby sweet potato pie recipe from a Farm Journal compilation cookbook (handwriting in scan is my mom's). My only alterations were substituting Okinawan sweet potatoes for the typical orange ones, and I used a blend of cinnamon, clove, cardamom, nutmeg, and coriander for the spice.

The crust is the basic-ass pastry from the 1963 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, Crisco and all, because the thought of having to cut butter into flour was making me seriously consider skipping the entire project. I used apple cider instead of water, after seeing a tip in the same book to use orange juice to flavor pastry, and it didn't make a damn bit of difference.

This was also my first time actually attempting the make the crust look good, as opposed to just folding the extra pastry over the filling and calling it “rustic”. I never made anything remotely good-looking with playdoh as a kid and it's coming back to haunt me.

I forgot to get whipping cream at the store the previous two times I shopped, so the pie got eaten naked. I had envisioned it with lightly flavored whipped cream (I hadn't decided on a flavor) and a sprinkle of the pinkish-purple rose sugar I made this past summer, but it didn't happen.

I also keep losing track of the time and finishing cooking projects after the natural light has disappeared for the day (before 5!), and having dishes pile up... Photos were rushed and taken in a state of next-day dejection.

Notes for next time:

• Use butter in the crust.
• Cover the edges of the crust with tinfoil to prevent more browning, if I care on that particular day.
• Try citrus juice in the crust, why not. Maybe a cookie crumb crust with gingersnaps.
• Try coconut milk. A lot of the recipes online use it, but I don't necessarily trust strange food blogs I've never seen in my life. Does it substitute 1:1? I'll find out sometime.
• If the store ever stocks sweet potato varieties with redder/pinker flesh, grab some. A pink sweet potato pie would be really pretty.
• Fancy! Fucking! Garnishes!!

#Recipes

When I cook with dried chiles I tend to disobey rules by leaving all the seeds in and using all the soaking water, because I love bitter flavors to death. Kabocha immediately came to me as a nice pairing for this earthy, bitter chili; the sweetness melds well and provides a nice complement, and now I would miss the squash too much if I left it out. Many times I'll go ahead and add beans to the chili as well, and mayacoba/yellow beans are my favorite here. The extra richness from the beans and sweetness from the squash make the sauce even better.

My default combination of dried chiles for this recipe is pasilla, guajillo, and arbol, because those are what I always try to keep around. The most recent time I used pasilla, arbol, cherry peppers from the farmer's market, and smoked habaneros a friend made. It's flexible.

I most often eat the chili with long-grain white rice, but it's rich enough that it stands up to brown rice, and arroz rojo or an herby Spanish rice also work well. Tortillas or corn bread are just as good. Something citrusy to drink (or an orange for dessert) is nice too.

Adapted from Rick Martinez's Chili Colorado at Bon Appétit. Video here, if you need visuals.

Ingredients:

• Vegetable oil or olive oil
• 2—3 lbs pork shoulder, cut into 1” pieces
• 1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
• 6—8 cloves garlic, smashed or roughly chopped
• 1 t oregano
• 1 t cumin seeds
• 2 bay leaves
• Black pepper, to taste
• Salt, to taste
• ~7 cups water and/or stock
• Dried chiles (at least 7 large ones), with stems removed
• 2 cups mayacoba beans
• 1 small or ½ medium kabocha squash, cut into 1” pieces

Method:

• Heat enough oil to cover the bottom of a large pot over medium. Brown meat in several small batches, transferring to a plate.
• Saute onion and garlic in pot, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until translucent. Add pork, oregano, cumin, bay, black pepper, salt, and enough water or stock to barely cover (2—4 cups). Cover, bring to a boil, and simmer 30 minutes.
• Place chiles in a bowl with 3 cups boiling water or stock. Cover bowl and let soak for 30 mins. Puree chiles in a blender or food processor (tear chiles into small pieces before soaking if no appliances are available).
• Add chile puree and mayacoba beans to pot. Continue simmering partially covered until beans are tender but not soft, around 60 minutes.
• Add kabocha and cook until squash is soft, checking every 10 minutes.
• Serve with tortillas, rice, or corn bread.

#recipes #food

Chili from April 2020, with pinto beans, smoked habanero, and roughly torn ancho chilis.