Katherine Hall Page

Recipes

Many of Katherine's recipes are available in her cookbook, Have Faith in Your Kitchen,
plus some additional material.

Note: the selection will change periodically, so copy these down while you can!
Also see:

Here is a wonderful winter recipe from The Body in the Wardrobe

Sweet Potato Pie with Caramel Pecan Sauce (Optional)

What you need (pie filling):

1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered
5 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
¾ cup brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 cup half-and-half
1 teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of salt
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¾ teaspoon cinnamon
An unbaked pie shell

What you need (pie crust):

1 ½ cups All Purpose flour
Pinch of salt
Pinch of baking powder
½ cup unsalted butter in pieces
1/4 cup ice water

What you need (Optional Caramel Pecan Sauce):

¼ cup butter
½ cup light brown sugar
1 tablespoon half-and-half
2 tablespoons dark corn syrup
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

PIE FILLING SECTION:
Steam or boil the potatoes until soft. Drain and puree using a food mill (sweet potatoes can be stringy). Set aside.

Cream the butter, sugar, and spices by hand or with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, half-and-half and vanilla. Add the potatoes and beat until smooth.

Pour the mixture into the pie shell and bake for 40-50 minutes. A thin knife or skewer inserted in the middle of the pie should come out clean.

You may use light or dark brown sugar. Faith’s favorite pie crust recipe may be made in your food processor or by hand (use pie crust ingredients).

PIE CRUST SECTION:
If using a food processor, put all the ingredients in the bowl and slowly add the ice water with the motor running until you have a nice ball of dough. By hand, cut the butter into the dry ingredients and then slowly add the ice water.

OPTIONAL CARAMEL PECAN SAUCE SECTION:
The sauce is listed as optional, because to many adding anything to a treasured sweet potato pie recipe is not only gilding the lily, but also downright blasphemous. However, this sauce is delicious on ice cream, pancakes, waffles, and all sorts of other concoctions. Plus every once in a while too much is just fine and you may want to spoon it over your pie.

Combine the butter, sugar, corn syrup and half-and-half in a small saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring, until it is smooth—approximately 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Add the vanilla and pecans. Stir and spoon over each serving.

The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for a week.