It’s Really About the Pie

Posted on November 26th, 2017

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Our trip home was exactly as we had hoped: tons of time with family.  It is risky to declare a single day your favorite of the year, but Thanksgiving 2017 lived up to the hype.

Nothing says Thanksgiving like a beautiful, giant vat of bubbling oil!  We don’t deep-fry our turkey, but our family friends do, and it has become a tradition to join them in their ritual in the early afternoon.  My dad leads the way in scoring hot dogs and sausages to drop in the fryer for a crispy protein snack– with all the condiments and fixings, of course!

As our Thanksgiving hostess, my grandmother is pretty set in her routine for Thanksgiving dinner preparation, but this year, I was called up to the big leagues and asked to prepare a pumpkin pie. #blessed Truthfully, I prefer fruit pies to pumpkin/custard varieties, but I had tested a few recipes during the month and had settled on this one from Half Baked Harvest.  The bourbon/maple ingredients added a depth of flavor, and I really liked the crunchy texture from the pecans.  (I did modify the recipe by blind baking the crust with pumpkin filling for 12 minutes before adding the pecan mixture to create distinct layers– I had found the bottom underbaked in my test runs)

Pie queen Marie Saba has been my pie muse the past few weeks– I hope I made her proud!

It was a wonderful celebration with these turkeys.  Is there such a thing as TOO grateful?