Thanksgiving Rewind 2009

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Did you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving? I hope so. I had a great day, but it started out a little rough. I was tired from staying up late the night before, baking bar cookies. That morning, when I went to the kitchen and sliced the bars, they stuck to the pan and I couldn't get them out, which was my own fault because I didn't line the pan with foil like I usually do. So I got pissed off and stormed away. And then my mom did her best to slice the bars, and then she put them on a platter and set it on the table. I stormed into the kitchen, picked up the platter, and chucked the bars into the trash.

They looked really crappy and I couldn't serve them. Although they tasted good. I'm trying to decide if I should bake them again, but I don't know... I don't know if I want to go out and buy all the ingredients again.

Other than that, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. That's a picture of my plate, above. It's filled with stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes. There's a tiny bit of turkey, too. All of it was delicious. The stuffing and sweet potatoes are definitely my favorites.

Here's a picture of the turkey:
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Here are the rolls. I didn't bake these. They come from the restaurant where I wait tables at.
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This is me with my sister, Hannah.
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...and my boyfriend, Eric.
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Later on in the afternoon, we headed over to Eric's house and had dinner and margaritas with his family. Their food was delicious, too! They had smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potato souffle, rolls, and several casseroles. Eric's favorite is corn casserole, which was really, really good. I've never had corn casserole before at my family's dinner. Does anyone have a good recipe?
That's Aunt Patti in the background. She's very nice and sweet. She makes a killer pecan pie and pumpkin pie.
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This is the sweet potato souffle. It's not an actual souffle, but mashed sweet potatoes with a brown sugary-pecan topping. It was my favorite dish there. Soooo good.
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So that was my Thanksgiving. I can't think of anything terribly exciting that happened. Eric and I watched Home Alone later. Wheeee! That's exciting. I secretly love Home Alone. Kevin McAllister is SO clever.

Now it's on to Christmas! I'm already exited about that. I can sense many, many cookies in my future.... and yours!
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Here's one for you: Chocolate-Dipped Pomegranate & Pistachio Shortbread. Mmmm buttery shortbread with pistachios and pomegranate arils, dipped in chocolate. The red and green makes this the perfect cookie for the holidays.

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Chocolate Dipped-Pomegranate Pistachio Shortbread (Recipe by Me)
Printable Recipe

1 cup Wonderful pistachios, toasted
1/2 cup quick oats
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk
1 cup POM Wonderful pomegranate arils
2/3 cup POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
2 cups dark chocolate chips

Process the pistachios in a food processor until finely ground, and add to a medium bowl. Process oats until finely ground, and add to bowl. Whisk in flour and baking powder until combined.

In a large bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together butter, sugar and vanilla until creamy, about 1 minute. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in milk and flour mixture until combined, about 1-2 minutes. Form dough into two discs, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for forty minutes or until cold.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat cookie sheets with cooking spray.

On a lightly floured surface, using a floured rolling pin, roll each disc into a 11x8-inch rectangle. Slice rectangles into rows 5x4, and transfer squares to cookie sheets. Bake for 5 minutes and remove from oven; press an even amount of pomegranate arils into cookies. Continue to bake an additional 10-12 minutes or until cookie edges are golden brown. Cool for 1 minute before transferring to wire racks to cool.

Bring pomegranate juice to a simmer, in a small saucepan, over medium low heat; turn heat off and whisk in chocolate until melted and smooth. Dip shortbread into chocolate, and place on wire racks to dry.

Makes 40 shortbread


Thanksgiving Dessert Blogging Part 3 & Maple-Vanilla Bean Pumpkin Pie

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9:00 PM. We are mere hours from the biggest food holiday of the year, people. Are you ready? Is everything prepped and baked?

Does anyone eat breakfast on Thanksgiving? I didn't think so... I never have. You have to make room for all of the deliciousness coming your way. I considered even fasting today. But then I got hungry and had some pizza.

At this point I have pecan and pumpkin pies baked, and I'm getting ready to bake some cookies. I'm trying to get up and get back in the kitchen.

Other things that are prepped and ready to go: Sweet potatoes, cranberry salad, rolls, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes will be prepared tomorrow.

Stuffing/Dressing. My favorite! Oh, how I love sage.
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I love herbs. I've got the good stuff right here, yo. I'll hook you up.
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And the turkey is brining. Oh.. my.. The after-picture of the bird is always much better than the before-picture. Poor little turkey. It's cold and salty in there. Sadly, um, the turkey isn't my favorite part of the meal. I prefer the sides. :)
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I baked a traditional pumpkin pie, but added a little bit of maple syrup and vanilla bean to compliment the flavors. Also, I whipped the egg whites and folded them into the filling to create a lighter pie.
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And of course you have to add spices! I'm not Ina Garten; I like to use freshly grated nutmeg. Ohhh snap. That was a little joke I made that only Ina fans would get. ...And I've officially become even dorkier than I already am.
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I'll probably do a little update tomorrow, but maybe not.
Hope you have a happy Thanksgiving!

Maple-Vanilla Bean Pumpkin Pie (Recipe be Me)
Printable Recipe

3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 a vanilla bean, seeds scraped out
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 (9-inch) unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks until well combined. Whisk in pumpkin, evaporated milk, brown sugar, maple syrup, vanilla bean seeds, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, until well combined. Beat egg whites in a clean, large mixing bowl, using a mixer on high speed, until stiff peaks form - about 2 minutes. Fold egg whites into pumpkin mixture. Pour filling into pie crust.

Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake an additional 50-55 minutes, or until set.

Makes 8 servings

Thanksgiving Dessert Blogging Part 2 & Ultimate Pecan Pie

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The secret to Ultimate Pecan Pie? Toasting your pecans. Toasting brings out the flavorful oil of the nuts.

Welcome back. It's 6:00 PM and this day has not gone as planned. I wanted to update a lot more than this, but it hasn't worked out well. I've been busy trying to get the desserts finished. Although I have updated my Twitter more than I ever have.

The pie dough turned out beautifully. I was very happy with it.
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This is how I flute the edges of pie crust. It's one of my favorite parts of pie baking.
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This is the filling of my pecan pie - it consists of chopped pecans, browned butter, sugar, brown sugar corn syrup, eggs, and the secret ingredient...

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The seeds of half of a vanilla bean pod. Mmm vanilla.
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This is the filling in the pie shell, right before baking. I lined the edges with pecan halves.
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The baked version. Oh man. I love pecan pie. Puhcahn pie.
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I'm looking forward to this pie. I've always preferred pecan over pumpkin.
I'm getting tired. :(

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Ultimate Pecan Pie (Recipe by Me)
Printable Recipe

1 2/3 cup pecan halves
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 large eggs
1 cup dark corn syrup
3/4 cup packed granulated sugar
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (9-inch) unbaked pie shell

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cook the pecans in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 4-5 minutes; remove. Add the butter to skillet and cook until foamed and golden brown, stirring frequently, about 2 minutes. Reserve 1/2 cup pecan halves, and chop the rest.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs until just combined. Whisk in corn syrup, sugar, cream, vanilla bean seeds and salt, until well combined. Stir in chopped pecans and browned butter until combined; pour into pie shell. Places pecan halves around the border.

Bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes, or until set, but slightly jiggly; cool on a wire rack.

Makes 8 servings

Thanksgiving Dessert Blogging Part 1 & Double Crust Pie Dough

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I've gotten kind of a late start to posting. I had to work out, and then clean up the kitchen. I always have to have a spotless kitchen before I start to bake. Then, uploading and editing these pictures took longer than expected. Hopefully I'll get in a few more posts today, but I'm not sure how many.

So welcome to Thanksgiving dessert blogging! I'll be updating what I'm up to all day long. We're not having many people over for Thanksgiving, so I'm trying not to bake too much. Mom and dad will be attending, my three sisters, two brother-in-laws, my nephew Jayden, and my lovely boyfriend Eric. It's almost Thanksgiving! Aren't you excited? What are your plans?

All I've done so far is make the pie dough. Let me walk you through how I make pie dough.

Stir together dry ingredients until well combined.
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Cut up cold butter into tiny pieces...
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...and add to dry ingredients.
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Knead in the butter using your fingertips until small lumps form. It'll look like this:
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Sprinkle in the ice water, a tablespoon at a time, and lightly toss and stir with a fork, until you can mash the dough together and form two balls. Mixture will look like this after adding water:
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Form the balls into discs and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour before rolling out. Be sure to allow the dough to warm up a bit before you start rolling. I prefer using a lightly floured surface over parchment paper, plastic wrap, silpats, etc. It's easier, and that's how our grandmas did it!
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I hope that helps some of you. Let me know if you have any questions. Sorry the pictures aren't that great... I'm going to switch lenses, I think. Oh, one more thing - I have been using an all-butter pie crust for some time now. It's the best, I'm telling you. It's very flaky and flavorful. I know a lot of people use shortening, but I'm finished with that. Pie crust isn't worth dying over. :o Kidding.

You may have noticed I've added a new feature to my blog: Printable recipes! It's going to take me a while to add this feature to all of my recipes, but all of the newer recipes will have it. Yaaaaay! I did it! I'm very proud of myself. I also have a brand spankin' new Flickr account, and I'm going to be making some changes in the blog design soon.

Yes, ch-ch-ch-changes. Sugar Plum will going through changes like an adolescent boy going through puberty.

See you soon!



Double Crust Pie Dough (Recipe by Me)
Printable Recipe

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
6-7 tablespoons ice water

To make the crust, in a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Work the butter in, using a pastry blender or your fingers, until pea-sized lumps form. Sprinkle in the water, 1 tbsp. at a time, stirring gently with a fork after each addition and adding only enough of the water to form a rough mass.

Using floured hands, pat the dough into two smooth, flattened discs. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour in the refrigerator before rolling out. Let the dough sit out and warm up a bit before you try rolling.