To make Peanut Butter Sweet Potato Pie, you’ll need sugar, cinnamon, allspice, mace, salt, cooked sweet potatoes, peanut butter, milk, butter, eggs, and a pastry shell.

Ready?

Combine 3/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/4 teaspoon mace, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Mix well.

Stir in 1 + 3/4 cups cooked sweet potatoes. Mix well.

Stir in 1 cup of peanut butter. Stir until smooth.

Add two slightly beaten eggs, 1 cup of milk, and 2 tablespoons melted butter, and mix everything thoroughly.

Pour this mixture into the pastry shell and bake for 40 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

Worth eating, and good for you!

Here’s an old fashioned scalloped potatoes recipe from the recipe box I keep in the cupboard:

Get out about two pounds of potatoes, a medium onion, a cup of grated cheddar cheese, and a cup of sour cream. Keep paprika on hand. Plus you’re going to have to make about a cup of white sauce.

What could be easier? Scalloped potatoes are an old family favorite I remember from my childhood. My mom made them - not often - but I always was happy to see them on my plate. My grandmother made them too.

Here’s the directions for making the best scalloped potatoes in the world:

Peel the potatoes, then slice them very thin. Chop the onions. Parboil these in salted water until barely tender. It takes ten minutes or less. Then drain off the water - you won’t need that anymore.

Prepare your white sauce then add the sour cream and a pinch of paprika.

Grease your casserole dish and layer the potatoes therein. After the first layer, spoon some of the white sauce over them. Then sprinkle on some cheese. Then go on to the next layer, putting sauce over that, and grated cheese over that, and so on until you run out of things to layer.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. This should be enough scalloped potatoes to serve six people.

If you try this recipe, come back here and let me know how you liked it!

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Submitted to The Vegetarian Carnival and Carnival of the Recipes.

Organic Cinnamon
Cinnamomum cassia

I don’t know if it works, yet… but I found this cinnamon and honey idea on a news site from India along with a list of other healthy cinnamon and honey ideas. It is from Ayurvedic and Yunani medicine.

The article says that to lose weight, we should make a tea of honey and cinnamon. The author suggested that we boil honey and cinnamon in the water, but I am more inclined to add them to boiled water rather than boil them. Then drink one cup in the morning, about half an hour before breakfast on an empty stomach… and drink one more cup of this tea at night. I’ve tried it a few times and the tea tastes great. I would drink it more often!

Anyhow, the article goes on to claim that if consumed regularly this honey and cinnamon tea will reduce weight by not allowing fat to accumulate in the body even if a person eats a high calorie diet. I hope this is true, and will try it for the next month. I’ll let you know if I lose any weight this way.

I’ll be posting more about honey and cinnamon cures in the future. I like easy and quick home remedies that can be found in my country kitchen pantry.

[Update - 2/7/09: There have been a lot of helpful, informative comments posted here. Please take time to read through them before trying this tea. I found another site with more information comparing real cinnamon to cassia: Fake Cinnamon? The cassia contains a "potentially harmful" substance called coumarin. Small amounts are safe for humans to use because we metabolize it into 7-hydroxycoumarin. It is possible that more than a teaspoon daily could be too much for some small people. Coumarin is an appetite suppressant so possibly cinnamon cassia is the one to use, in moderation. Also see Diabetes and Cinnamon/Cassia.]

This is what is called “true cinnamon” … click on the picture and go read the advertising copy. It is very informative!

Cinnamomum zeylanicum: