When my kids were small, I introduced sweet potatoes as nature's candy, delectable and fun, like a trip to the penny candy store, but no one bought it. I tried mashing it with butter, salt and pepper and maple syrup, serving it with raisin smily faces, bribed extra t.v. time for just a few bites, to no avail.

I even had a monster smash hit with the song, "Sweet! Sweet! Sweet Potato!", but we ended up chanting it as a game, clapping and walking, not eating....

What I didn't do was serve it up in a pie, and there was my mistake. It could not have been resisted mixed with brown sugar and poured into a pie shell, sprinkled with toasted pecans with a final topping of spray-your-own

whipped cream!

I never thought about pie.

Here's a recipe for Sweet Potato Bourbon Pie from Vegetarian Times (www.vegetariantimes.com), which I made yesterday--it took all of 10 minutes to prepare, and I was eating it an hour later, can't beat it with a stick.

2 Cups cooked pureed orange fleshed sweet potato, such as Beauregard, garnet or jewel

(I used canned and mashed it with a potato masher)

3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 Cup all-purpose flour

2 Tbs. bourbon

1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1/4 tsp. salt

3 large eggs

1 9 inch whole wheat pie crust shell

2 Tbs. chopped toasted pecans (I used at least half a cup)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together sweet potato, brown sugar, flour, bourbon, pumpkin pie spice, salt and eggs in a large bowl until smooth. (I left mine a bit lumpy)

Pour into pie shell. Sprinkle with pecans.

2. Place on rimmed baking sheet. Bake 50 minutes, or until center is set. Cool on wire rack.

So Good! Enjoy!