Since I moved to New York from Nashville, I spend most of my Thanksgivings with my family in Pennsylvania.

Thanksgiving in the Northeast is pretty different. There's no deep-fried turkey, no chess pie, no bourbon pecan pie, and no cornbread. I have slowly gotten used to this drastic difference in menu, but every year the worst thing imaginable happens to my tastebuds. I make my way to the dessert table and mindlessly grab a slice of orange-colored pie thinking it's sweet potato pie, only to take a bite and realize that it's sweet potato's less tasty northern cousin... pumpkin pie. I get that the pie you prefer probably has a lot to do with which pie your grew up eating, but for myself and many other southerners sweet potato pie is a holiday staple. So what do you do if your Thanksgiving dinner has to please both northerners and southerners alike? YOU MAKE A TOTALLY AWESOME MIX OF BOTH. I started doing this after my tastebuds were feeling kind of homesick, and it has made my Thanksgivings so much better. Hopefully, this pie recipe will blur the culinary Mason-Dixon line in your family too.

Sweet Potato Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

• 1 9-inch pie crust
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup mashed sweet potatoes
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup heavy cream or almond milk
• Toasted Pecans

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. Roll your pie crust onto pie pan, and place it in the refrigerator while you make the pie filling
3. In a large bowl mix the pumpkin puree, sweet potatos, maple syrup, vanilla extract, spices, lemon juice and salt.
4. Add the eggs one at a time and gradually mix in the heavy cream or almond milk.
5. Take the pie shell from the fridge
6. Add Pie filing
7. Put pie on the middle rack of the oven.
8. Bake for 1 hour
9. When done, let it cool
10. Serve with whipped cream and place the toasted pecans in the whipped cream