Hi Everyone!
Welcome to day 2 in Baton Rouge! This morning we got up bright and early, hopped on the Limo Bus provided by Riverside Limousines. We had the nicest chauffeur, John! He drove us all over the place!! Poor guy! A bunch of food bloggers looking for the next food destination to hit!! John drove us to our first stop which was Louie’s Cafe.
Louie’s Cafe is a 24 hour cafe nestled at the North Gates of LSU. The restaurant was established in 1941 and has been a staple to LSU students and parent crowds. Louie’s Cafe serves up a menu that ranges from there famous 10 egg veggie omelet to hamburgers to catfish and even chicken fried steak. What a great variety!!
Since it was breakfast time, I ordered the famous a 10 veggie egg white omelet with an english muffin on the side. It was amazing and fat in size! 10 veggies!! It has sprouts, celery, broccoli just to name a few. I never had sprouts and celery in an omelet, but it was really good and very filling!! Yes, I would sooooo order it again!
Theresa from The Food Hunter’s Guide to Cuisine ordered the Pecan Pancakes and she was kind enough to share. They were massive and amazing tasting!!! Don’t they look good? You know how much I love pancakes!!! The tops of them were slightly crispy, which made them almost cookie like to me!
Theresa also ordered a side of cheesy potatoes. Crazy good! That was a heaping plate of potatoes. It was sad because they all didn’t get eaten. I could see them in a food challenge! How cool would that be?
The chef’s at Louie’s Cafe were funny and comical. I felt kind of funny taking a picture of them, I’m kind of mad that I didn’t. But I did get a nice shot of the kitchen. We sat at the bar,which is one of my favorite places to sit at a restaurant. I know most people don’t like to sit near the kitchen, but I like it. It’s exciting and I like to watch the chefs cook. I learn new techniques and get ideas for meals.
After our very, very, very filling breakfast we headed to Red Sticks Farmers Market to check out the local produce, locally made desserts, treats, jams and honey.
I saw this sign before entering the farmers market and I just had to take a picture!
The farmers market looks small but it’s not! Not only are there vendors outside selling all of there precious goods, but there is also an inside, set up like individual little stores. It was pretty cool!!
I found everyone in Baton Rouge to be so friendly and proud of there city. My Mom and I hit up the local honey stand to taste some sweet honey. It tastes amazing!!
When tasting the honey, Pete, at the stand was so nice I had to take a picture of him. In return he took a picture of my Mom and I! I can’t believe he keeps a camera in his pocket!
I made another slide show for you on some of the different things I saw at the Red Sticks Farmers Market.
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One thing I ate at the Farmers Market was my very first sweet potato pie. Yes, I admit, I never had a sweet potato pie and I LOVE sweet potatoes! I guess it’s because my family doesn’t care for sweet potatoes, so I don’t make it at home and was thrilled when I got the opportunity to try it. Oh my it is so good!! So good that it inspired me for today’s recipe. Here is a picture of the pie I ate.
Here is today’s recipe that was inspired by the the sweet potato hand pie that I had at the Red Sticks Farmers Market. Aren’t they cute?
This my mini version of those delicious Sweet Potato Hand Pies. These little pies are light, flaky and filled with a sweetened sweet potato filling. For the sweet potato filling, I cheated and used organic canned sweet potato filling with no added sugar. If you want to make your own pie filling, just peel a sweet potatoes, dice it up, place it in water and bring to a boil. Cook until fork tender, drain the water and place the potatoes into a food processor or blender and process until smooth. With the reserved pie filling I have another recipe to share with you later this week, if I have time to make it. For the pie crust, I cheated on that too! I used one 9″ Pillsbury Pie Crust. I rolled it out thinner and took the bottom of a glass to cut out my circles. It makes it so much easier and I really like the Pillsbury Pie Crusts.
To add some umph to my filling of my mini pie, I used maple syrup to sweetened it up! Plus a pinch of bourbon, and cinnamon. Oh my gosh the filling is amazing and so sweet! When making this recipe, you will have a pinch of filling left over. I didn’t take that in mind in the calories of the recipe, so my calculations are a pinch higher than what the recipe really is. What do I with the left over filling your wondering? Eat it!!! It’s so good! Or spoon it in your yogurt!
These pies are wonderful on their own, but I had to zip it up a bit by making a bowl of vanilla ice cream, drizzling it with maple syrup and chopped pecans that I picked up at Red Sticks Farmers Market. The pecans are so good and are a perfect compliment to my Mini Sweet Potato Hand Pies. You really need to make this dessert, it’s so darn good!!!! I made the dessert as soon as the mini pies are fresh out of the oven. Oh m gosh!!!! It makes me gitty and speechless. The warm pie made the ice cream melt and coated my pie with the fabulous flavors infused in the ice cream. *Drooling*
- Serves: 14 mini pies
- Serving size: 1 pie
- 1 Pillsbury 9" pie crust, thawed to room temperature
- ¾ cup sweet potato, puree (not pie filling)
- 2 tsp. maple syrup
- ½ tsp. Bourbon whiskey (optional)
- ¼ tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tbsp. butter, melted
- ½ tsp. turbinado sugar
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside
- In a bowl, add sweet potatoes, maple syrup , bourbon and cinnamon; mix until combined.
- Sprinkle flour onto a large piece of parchment paper. This will be for rolling out your dough. Sprinkle a little bit of flour onto your pie dough and with a rolling pin, roll pie dough out till about ¼" think. With a 3" round cookie cutter or the bottom of a glass, cut 14 (3-inch) rounds. With the scraps of dough, roll the dough and cut out until you no longer have any dough left. I had just a tiny bit of scrap left.
- Place about a heaping ½ teaspoon of sweet potato filling in the center of each round. Bring ½ of the pastry round over the other, and press down lightly with your fingertips to enclose the filling and expel any air. You will be making a half circle or crescent shape. Using the tines of a fork, crimp the edges of the dough to seal completely. Place on prepared baking sheet. With a pastry brush, lightly brush the tops of each pie with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar.
- Bake in oven for about 16 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
- Serve warm with ice cream, a drizzle of maple syrup and pecans or eat by themselves with a cup of coffee.
Calories per mini pie: 77, Fat: 3.8, Cholesterol: 2.9, Sodium: 91, Carbs: 10, Fiber: .02, Sugar: 2.3, Protein: 1
Now if you remember I said my family doesn’t like sweet potatoes and I never make them at home, except for fend for yourself night, but this dessert they loved. My Husband said this is really good! I asked him, do you like the mini pies? He said yah, I do!! ha ha I never told him they were sweet potato or he wouldn’t like them. Now if you really, really don’t like sweet potatoes, you could make this same recipe using canned pumpkin. I have done that in the past and it is equally as good! So use whatever floats your fancy! For the picture you see of the creamy ice cream, drizzled in oh so sweet maple syrup and topped with a light, flaky mini pie, that was for my Husband. For me, we were just about out of ice cream, so I made a mini and I mean mini ice cream treat for me. Glad I made this when I did because I bought the ice cream specifically for this recipe!
I hope you liked today’s adventure of Baton Rouge! I had a blast! Breakfast was amazing!!! The Red Sticks Farmers Market was so much fun and I loved meeting all of the people. Really, everyone was so friendly!! I have never been anywhere, where everyone was so nice. I think it must be all that good food? How can people not be happy with such yummy food everywhere?
If your interested in seeing the sites I saw today in Baton Rouge, I posted the websites below. Oh and check out Visit Baton Rouge on Pintrest to see more pictures of the sites! This day is not even remotely close to being over that I had to break it down into two more posts, so stayed tuned tomorrow for a fun day that really blew my mind.
Today’s websites:
Well that’s it for me today! Time for me to go make dinner!
Have a great day!
Toodles,
Jennifer
P.S. I almost forgot to show you the inside of the Mini Sweet Potato Pie.
Hey glad you guys enjoyed our city. Baton Rouge is a amazing place to live. Thanks for sharing on your site.
Franna
I LOVED Baton Rouge! I really want to go back! I had a blast!!!
Ohhhhh yeah now you are speaking my language, these look AMAZING! YUMMMMMMM! With bourbon too, hells yes!
I’m not a big boos drinker, but I do love bourbon and it goes great with sweet potatoes! Wait till tomorrows recipe!
Yum! Sweet potato hand pies? They sound delicious! For some reason I think these look a lot like the potato empanadas that my Argentinean friend’s mother makes… though the sweet filling (booze, brown sugar, maple syrup!!!) makes me go weak at the knees. Definitely trying this recipe. Thanks so much Jennifer! x
They remind me of empanadas too! And I love a good empanada! Your friends Mom potato ones sound delish!!
Wow what a great flavor combination. Maybe I’ll borrow this idea for my sweet potato casserole for this year’s thanksgiving dinner.
OMG, that “no pets allowed” sign is just hilarious. That dog looks so guilty! Pretty much looks like my dog – always guilty of something 🙂
I love this recipe. Bourbon NOT optional in my book. haha.
Lol, I loved that sign too! Like your dog, mine always looks guilty!!
I believe that it was the remarkable Eleanor Roosevelt who stated that with the new day comes new strength as well as brand-new thoughts.
I want to thank you for putting new ideas into my head.
Your welcome! 🙂
I love sweet potato pies, but I’ve never had little individual pies like these. They are so cute! And tucked in with ice cream like that = a little piece of heaven.
Thank you Anni! I love them, even my sweet potato hater of a Husband loved these little hand pies.
Can I freeze the sweet potato mini hand pies?
Hi Debbie,
I don’t see why not. I would probably, freeze them before coking them. Then bake them when you needed them. Let me know how it turns out for you.