Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my all time favorite holidays, not a surprise since it’s all about feasting.  When I was a kid my parents hosted it and we would have around 40 people attend.  Since almost every  holiday was 40 or more, this didn’t seem odd to me.  What was odd was when in high school I invited a friend over for dessert after the Thanksgiving meal and I made reference to our dessert table.  That stopped him in his tracks and he turned to me and said, “You have a dessert table ?”  And I said, “Yeah, don’t you?” and he said, “No, we have A dessert, not a table of desserts”.  And I thought, oh, how sad!

Even though I did not have to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year, (we went to my brothers) and even though there were only 8 of us at the table I made three pies.  It is my custom.  Bob, my husband loves apple pie, so we must have that, my brother and I were raised with a love of pumpkin pie, so we MUST have that, and my daughter loves pecan pie, so of course we MUST have that.  There are many other family favorites, like Key Lime, or Banana or Coconut Cream, but those are not Thanksgiving pies, those are for other times of the year.

Before I head full tilt into a pie discussion I stumbled across a recipe for making cheesecake in a crockpot.  This intrigued me, so I had to try it.  I did an internet search for a pumpkin cheesecake recipe, used a cookie crust made from ginger snaps, and made it in a souffle dish.  Traditional cheesecake is baked in a water bath, so the idea of using the crock-pot to create the water bath for a slow bake is a good one, however the draw backs are that you need to find a container that fits in your crock-pot, and since you can’t use a spring form (it won’t fit, and you’d need to wrap it in foil to make it water tight even if it did fit), you end up with a kind of cheesecake casserole which is hard to serve.  It cooks in 2 hours on high.  It was good, lovely silky texture but frankly not a whole lot better than making it in the oven.  So, now I know.

Ok, one more thing before I tackle the pies, I want to give you my tip for a 2 hour turkey.  I always roast my turkeys this way.  An hour before roasting the turkey remove it from the fridge.  Using a good sharp knife cut the legs off the turkey, and then cut the thigh’s off the turkey.  In the bottom of a large roasting pan place the legs and thigh’s (if you like putting aromatic vegetables and herbs in your roasting pan place the legs and thigh’s on top of them.  Nestle the roasting wrack over the legs and thighs and place the breast on the rack.  Season the meat however you like (I melt butter and whisk it with Dijon mustard and spread that generously over the legs, thigh, breast, and wings and then season with salt and pepper-I also like to fill the cavity with a lemon half and herbs), and if you want add wine or water to the bottom of the pan, and let the bird sit about an hour.  When ready to roast, heat the oven to 375, place the turkey in the oven and roast about 2 hours.  If it gets brown before the meat is cooked, cover it with foil.  I cook my bird until a thermometer placed in the breast quickly reaches 146, I then remove it from the oven and let it sit about 30 minutes before carving and serving.  I typically roast birds that are 10-15 pounds, obviously a bigger bird would take longer.  There are several reasons I like roasting my bird this way, one is I don’t have to deal with cutting off a piping hot leg and thigh, and I can more easily carve the breast since the thigh and leg are already off, and it cooks in 2 hours, no waking up at the crack of dawn to put it in the oven like my mother used to.  The breast meat is never dry-although mom’s wasn’t either.

OK, so on to the pies.  The only recipe I’m giving you in it’s entirety is the Apple Pie in the Bag one.  After many many years of experimenting with pumpkin pie recipes, using cream instead of evaporated milk, making my own pumpkin puree, cooking the filling on the stove first, you name it, I’ve decided the good ol’ recipe on the Libby’s can is good enough.  I prefer a gingersnap cookie crust, so that’s my one deviation (2 C crushed gingersnaps, 3 oz. melted butter-combine and press into a pie plate).  For pecan pie, I want one made with melted butter and brown sugar, none of that karo for me.   I have a recipe, but I never feel like looking it up, so I google Pecan Pie and look for one that meets my criteria, and that’s the one I make.  One thing I did discover this year is using coconut oil in your crust along with butter.  In the olden days the best crusts were made with crisco and butter, that combination would create the best, flakiest crusts.  As much as I love my butter I was hoping that combining two kinds of fats might render the same result without the use of crisco which I won’t go near anymore, and surprise surprise it did!  The combination of butter and coconut oil makes a very buttery, crispy pie shell.

Now, Apple Pie in a Bag-this recipe came to me by way of my beloved Aunt Esther.  As I mentioned, Bob, my husband loves him some apple pie, so over the years we’ve been together I have experimented with many apple pie recipes.  I mentioned this to my cousin Lyn and she remembered her mom used to make this great recipe called Apple Pie in a Bag.  I got the recipe from Esther and have been making it for about 10 years now.  It’s super simple, and super good and comes out perfectly every single dingle time!  You take 6 apples, peel them, cut them into 8ths and combine them with sugar and spices, pour that into a pie crust, top with a crumb topping and slip the whole thing into a brown shopping bag.  Staple the bag shut, place it in a hot oven and bake it exactly one hour.  After an hour you will have a perfectly cooked, soft apples, crispy crust, buttery, spicy pie.  I’m not exactly sure what inspired some one to slide a pie in a bag and bake it, but it sure does work.  Just be careful your bag doesn’t touch any of the oven or it may catch fire.  And since this will probably take up your whole oven you need to plan your roasting/baking around your pie baking, but it’s worth it, it’s a damn good pie.