Rosie Has Her Eyes On The Pies. Thanksgiving Pies.

If I had to pick a favorite holiday, it would be Thanksgiving, and for 2 simple reasons:
the food and the fact that no gift-giving is involved.  Family, tradition, gratitude, celebration ... yeahyeahyeah-it's all good, but give me the food.  I'm happiest in the kitchen anyway, so I consider Thanksgiving as MY holiday. 

Today I'll be sharing two pie recipes you might consider for your Thanksgiving table - a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie.

I've included one of my favorite pie dough recipes, but if you don't want to make your own pie dough, I recommend the refrigerated roll-up doughs that come two to a box, not the frozen pie doughs in the tins, which are smaller and tend to crack.


Pie Crust
Makes 3 pies.
4 cups flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1 TB sugar
1 ½ cups chilled Crisco, cubed
1 egg
1 TB white distilled vinegar
½ cup cold water
Stir flour, salt, and sugar to combine. Cut in Crisco with a pastry blender or by hand until you have coarse crumbs.
Add in egg, vinegar, and water and quickly form into a dough.
Flatten into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

My usual mantra is, “fresh is best,” but in the case of pumpkin pie, I’ll go with canned pumpkin purée any day. It’s consistent. Making homemade pumpkin purée isn’t worth the effort. You must cut, clean, seed, and roast the pumpkin, then you purée it, cook it down, and you must strain it to remove stringy fibers. Even then, you won’t get a texture as smooth as canned. When you buy canned pumpkin, be sure to buy 100 percent puréed pumpkin, not “pumpkin pie filling,” which has already been spiced.

As for your spices, fresh is best here. Use freshly grated nutmeg and ginger root to put in bright flavors and take this pie over the top.
I have found that the cooking and stirring of the pie ingredients on the stove top produces bolder, more assertive flavors and that the blending of the ingredients results in a smoother, less grainy custard. 

 
  Pumpkin Pie
1 9-inch pie crust
1 15-ounce can pumpkin purée
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
¾ tsp cinnamon
1 ½ tsp grated fresh ginger
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
¼ tsp kosher salt
3 large eggs
1 egg yolk
1 ¼ cups heavy cream
Heat oven to 375°.
Arrange the pie dough in a 9-inch pan. Crimp the edges. Place a sheet of parchment paper inside the pie crust. Fill it with dry beans. Bake for 15 minutes. Set aside to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 350°.
While the crust bakes, mix the purée, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt in a small saucepan.
Cook over medium low heat, stirring often, for 8 minutes.
Transfer pumpkin mixture to blender and purée about 15 seconds.
Add the eggs and yolk, one at a time, processing after each addition.
With the processor or blender running, slowly pour in the cream and mix well.
Discard the beans and parchment from the crust and pour in the filling.
Bake about 1 hour, covering the edges if necessary to prevent over-browning, until center is set.
Cool completely on a rack before cutting.

For the leaves, cut dough out with a leaf cutter, place on baking sheet, sprinkle turbinado sugar over top, and bake until golden brown.
Cool leaves on a rack, then arrange on top of pie.
Serve pumpkin pie with a dollop of whipped cream.






















 
I don’t remember where this recipe for Pecan Pie came from, but it’s been in my dessert binder for 40 years. It’s that good.

Pecan Pie
1 9-inch unbaked pie crust
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
⅓ cup unsalted butter, melted
½ tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 big heaping cup of pecan halves
Heat oven to 350°.
Combine corn syrup, sugar, eggs, butter, salt, and vanilla. Mix well.
Pour into unbaked pie crust and sprinkle with pecan halves or be very OC and individually place each pecan half just riiiiight.
Bake about 1 hour 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Tent after the first 30 minutes so the edges and pecans don’t brown too much.
I like to serve this warm with a scoop of ice cream.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Enjoy the bounty and take time to count your blessings.

Turkey Day. Minus One.

Okey dokey. It's Wednesday. I woke up with two strange dogs staring at me. Mr. Hawthorne said he woke up this morning with a little dog in his bed whom he'd never seen before, but the dog totally respected his space and stayed at the opposite side of the bed, curled up on his pillow. That would be Dorie, Paul's dog. And there are 2 extra young men in my house, one sleeping on the floor, another on my couch.

So, let's get cooking. First up, cornbread, since I'm thinking about making a stuffing tomorrow involving cornbread.

First, I melted a glop of Crisco in a 9 x 13 pan.

Here are the ingredients for my cornbread: cornmeal baking powder salt milk egg corn

Add 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder to 2 cups cornmeal.

And add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt.

2 cups milk go in.

Then the melted Crisco.

Add in one egg.

And finally the can of corn went in.

Pour the mixture into the prepared, Criscoed pan. And bake for about 55 minutes. Next up, my potato rolls.

Two russet potatoes and one sweet potato. Peel, slice, and boil the potatoes in salt water until very tender. Save 2 cups of the potato water.

My ingredients for the potato rolls: boiled potatoes 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup Crisco 2 cups potato water 2 packages yeast 3 tsp salt 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 2 eggs

Add the two packages yeast to the tepid potato water.

Add in 1/2 cup sugar. Stir to dissolve, and let proof.

Add Crisco to potatoes and mash.

Add in 1/4 cup sugar to the potato mixture.

After about 20 minutes, the yeast mixture is puffy and proofed.

Add the potato/Crisco mixture to the yeast mixture. Whisk.

Add in 3 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda.

Beat the 2 eggs, and add to the batter.

Now, start adding in flour, one cup at a time.

Until you get a dough of sorts.

Turn out onto a floured board and start kneading.

Because of the potatoes, this will not be a smooth, elastic dough, no matter how much you knead it. But go ahead and try it anyway. I did my usual trick with my bread dough. I nuked a wet towel for about 90 seconds, then covered the plastic-wrapped dough with the hot towel and placed in the microwave to rise.

After a few hours, here's my risen dough. Then, I stuck it in the fridge to let it sit until tomorrow, when I'll make the rolls. Finally, dessert for tomorrow. What else but Pumpkin Pie?

Now, this is the BEST pumpkin pie. I found the recipe in the food section of my newspaper the other day, and it said "The BEST Pumpkin Pie," so it must be. My ingredients: 1 can pumpkin puree 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1 1/2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon salt 3 large eggs 1 egg yolk 1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream

I SandraLee'd the pie crust. I used one of those rolled-up Pillsbury crusts, since I didn't feel like making pie dough today. While the frozen Pillsbury dough was thawing, I mixed the pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a small sauce pan.

Next, I ground up 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg.

Then I grated 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh ginger.

Here's my Pillsbury pie dough in my pan.

Next, I put a sheet of parchment paper on top of the dough, and poured in beans almost to the top of the pie pan, to weigh the dough down. Put the dough into a preheated 375 degree oven and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350.

In the meantime, I added the freshly grated ginger and nutmeg to the pumpkin mixture, heated it over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 7 minutes.

I transferred the pumpkin mixture to my food processor and pureed for about 10 seconds.

Add in the eggs, one at a time, pulsing after each addition.

Finally add in the cream, with the processor running, and puree until well mixed. About another 10 seconds.

Pour the pumpkin mixture into the prepared crust.

The pumpkin pie is ready to go into the oven.

After one hour and then a few more minutes my pie is ready. The edges need to be puffed and the center set and just slightly jiggling. And I'm just about ready for Turkey Day.