I’m not real keen on pumpkin pie, but I love pecans…and butter…and brown sugar…with just a little pumpkin in the mix. That’s what these tiny tarts are made of. One-Bite Pumpkin-Pecan Pies remind me of pecan tassies, those rich little treats that often show up on holiday cookie trays. A little pumpkin and spice added to the mix adds delicious depth of flavor, so when you pop the first tiny pie into your mouth you get a delightful surprise. Especially if you were expecting pecans only.
The recipe I used comes from the book, “Our Favorite Recipes,” compiled by the Claremont Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Serving Sullivan County (whoa, that’s a much bigger mouthful than a One-Bite Pie!). It comes from Claremont, New Hampshire.
I made just a couple of changes to the recipe, using organic unsweetened coconut milk beverage instead of milk and also added some Bacardi Gold rum. Mmmm, good flavor. The filling is baked in little cream cheese pastry crusts.
In a Thanksgiving article Harper’s Bazaar published in 1900, the
author, Anna Wentworth Sears, recommends a jolly game of Pin The Head
On The Turkey. Rather than a tail and donkey, this requires a large
paper bird missing his noggin which, given the bill of fare, seems to
me not so jolly and also somewhat tragic. But that’s just me. She also
suggests, should this game grow tiresome, that ‘reciting Longfellow’s
poetry to music’ makes for swell after-dinner fun.
Me: I should post the turkey sandwich with the cranberry sauce. Everyone will have leftover cranberry sauce to use up.
I have a confession to make. I've never made a traditional Thanksgiving
dinner. I always cook something for the feast at my parent's house, but
not the whole meal and certainly not the turkey. I'm not sure I could
take the pressure! Thanksgiving is one of the most traditional of meals
and most of us have very specific expectations about what that dinner
should be.
I’m grateful for many things at Thanksgiving– family, friends, health, light traffic on the 405…all the usual suspects. But as the person who hosts that gathering year after year, I am also grateful for this technique for a perfect dry-brine roast turkey that makes my old wet-brine birds seem spongy, bland and far too much work by comparison.
, Rodgers goes into great detail on why salting meats and poultry days ahead of the actual cooking promotes juiciness, texture and enhances flavor…flying in the face of what, until then, had been the conventional wisdom that the salting of meats should be done only at the last minute. Per her instruction, I tried it with dozens of dishes–from chickens to chops to pot roasts–and, in every instance, the technique worked beautifully. But it never occurred to me to use it on the all important Thanksgiving turkey until The Los Angeles Times’ Russ Parson, one of my favorite food writers, declared it the definitive way to beautify the bird. And, boy, was Russ right.