A Taste of Southern Thanksgiving – Pecan Pie

When most people think of a Thanksgiving pie they automatically think pumpkin.  But in my family it just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without Pecan Pie:)As much as I love cooking and experimenting with recipes I find, or creating new ones, I have never been one to experiment at holiday meals.  We have the same menu every year at the various holidays we celebrate, not because I don’t choose to be creative but because I have come to realize that their are certain tastes and smells at each holiday that when they are repeated year to year are the things our memories are made of.

At Thanksgiving our family’s menu includes roast turkey and gravy, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, peas, creamed spinach, cranberry sauce, waldorf salad, butter rolls with cinnamon sauce, pumpkin pie, custard pie, and pecan pie.

One Thanksgiving, about 15 years ago, I had an unexpected lesson on how important food traditions can be to celebrating holidays and to creating memories for family and friends.  Our youngest daughter Amanda was a junior in high school at the time.  All my girls were, and are, great about helping in the kitchen anytime but especially at the holidays, but this particular year Amanda was the only one home for the Thanksgiving.  Sara and Carrie were away at college and weren’t coming home until Christmas.  So it was Amanda and I cooking for our extended family and friends.  We were going along fine and in really good shape with our food prep.  All that was left to do was to set the tables and finish making the pies.  The custard pie was done and cooling.  The pumpkin pies were in the oven so we only had the pecan pie left to make.  I rolled out the pie crust dough, filled the pie plate and applied the pie crust leaves and acorns to the edges, then stirred together the filling.  The pecans were deposited in the crust and the filling was added.  Into the oven it went and I turned my attention to making the centerpieces and setting the tables.  More than an hour later I began to smell something a little like burnt sugar.  It suddenly dawned on me that I had forgotten to set the kitchen timer and the pecan pie had been in the oven about 30 minutes longer than it should have been.  I opened the oven door to find a very over baked pie.   It was not something I would have served any time, let alone on a holiday.  So in the trash it went.

Since it was the holidays I had plenty more pecans.  I quickly made more pie crust dough and in short order had another pie ready for the oven.  In it went as the phone began ringing.  There was no one but me to answer it as my husband Randy was outside gathering firewood for our after dinner blaze and Amanda had jumped into the shower so she could get ready first and put the finishing touches on things while I got myself ready.  I had a quick “Happy Thanksgiving”conversation with an out of town family member and hung up with the thought that I needed to get the serving utensils and gravy boat from the cabinet so they were ready to go as dinner came out of the oven.  What I neglected to think about, AGAIN, was setting the timer.  I still had to  finish the place cards and decide who was sitting where and at which table.  With 18 of us for  dinner, there were too many of us to fit at one table so we had set two tables for all our extended family and friends.  The phone rang twice more as Sara and Carrie both called home to exchange Thanksgiving love and wishes for a happy celebration.  So with all this activity and distraction, and NO TIMER set…..you guessed it.  There was again a less than sweet smell coming from my kitchen.  I opened the oven door to a pie with a charred crust and blackened pecans.

About this time Amanda came back to the kitchen ready to take over for me so I could go and get ready.  “What happened?”  she asked.  “I forgot to set the timer….again!” I said very exasperated and generally disgusted with myself.  “Well”, I continued, “with the  pumpkin pies, the custard pie and plenty of See’s chocolates we don’t really need a pecan pie anyway.”  I was resigned to the idea that this year our Thanksgiving pies would not include pecan .  Then from across the kitchen I heard Amanda almost whisper in a very disappointed voice “But it won’t taste like Thanksgiving if we don’t have a pecan pie.”

It hit me then and there that the dishes we make and eat at these holidays were about so much more than just food to feed our bodies, they are just as much a part of making happy memories and feeding our souls.  For Amanda, it was not going to feel or taste like Thanksgiving if we didn’t have her favorite pecan pie.  It was going to be hard enough for all of us to have this holiday meal without Sara and Carrie with us to share it, but to not have their favorite pie too, well it was more than Amanda could stand.

Like I said before, I fortunately had a lot of pecans on hand for holiday baking, so within 15 minutes pecan pie #3 was in the oven, with not just one but two timers set to remind me when it was done.  This time the pie was perfect and our Thanksgiving dinner….it was almost perfect too.  It is never quite the same when the people you love aren’t at the table.

So savor the time you have with those you love this Thanksgiving and make the foods that keep those holiday memories alive.  And if you too like pecan pie maybe give this special recipe a try.   These are the things that contribute to more love, more joy and much, much more abundant living.

Deep South Pecan Pie

1 pie crust recipe
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick of butter melted
1 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup pecan halves

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Roll out and line a 9 inch pie plate with the pastry.

Trim the edge even with the rim of the pie plate.

There will be scraps of dough that you can use to cut out leaves and acorns with mini cookie cutters.

You can find sets of leaves and acorns at Amazon or Williams Sonoma.

Using a pastry brush, brush the edge of the pie crust with water to help the cut out leaves and acorns to stick to the edge of the crust.

Randomly place the leaves along the edge of the crust.

Continue placing leaves and acorns along the edge overlapping randomly.

Fill the bottom of the crust with pecans.

Beat the eggs together with the sugar, salt, melted butter, corn syrup and vanilla.

Pour filling over pecans.

Place prepared pie in the oven for 45 minutes or until the center of the pie seems well set when the pie is shaken.  The filling will rise a bit in the center when the pie is done.

When the crust is golden brown remove and cool.  Then eat, enjoy and create some happy memories of your own 🙂