Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the States and I am thankful for many things, most of all my family and friends. This year I am also thankful for the friendship and sense of community that I have found among my fellow food bloggers. Checking my email for your thoughtful and supportive comments and visiting your blogs has become a part of my daily ritual and a source of great pleasure. So thank you all!

My family is going out to dinner tomorrow. It’s not something we normally do, though we have on occasion. Normally I’d rather eat our traditional meal of turkey, stuffing (either bread or pork and potato), butternut squash, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, rutabaga, celery sticks, pickles, pumpkin pie and mince meat pie at one of our homes. This year I’m welcoming the chance to relax a little bit and enjoy a meal at a restaurant that as kids we thought was THE place to go. They’ve got the best popovers! Actually, we’ll be celebrating my sister-in-law’s birthday at my house tomorrow evening, so I’m still having to prepare a little for tomorrow. I’m keeping it simple since we’ll have eaten our big meal earlier in the day – I’m going to serve chicken soup and pecan pie (with candles in it!).

Here’s my mom’s recipe for pecan pie. Like the restaurant we’re going to tomorrow, this pie is something we thought was pretty special as kids – my mom didn’t make it very often, so when she did it was a real treat. It’s not nearly as sweet as other pecan pies I’ve had, but I’ve always preferred it to those others. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Pecan Pie

¼ cup butter
½ cup sugar
1 cup dark brown corn syrup
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt
1 cup pecans, broken

Cream butter. Add sugar and cream well together. Add corn syrup, eggs, vanilla, salt, and pecans. Pour into pastry-lined pie plate. Bake at 425 F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 F and bake for an additional 40 minutes. (You should probably shield the edge of the pastry with foil partway through cooking – I neglected to do that this time and you can see that the crust is quite dark.) Makes one eight-inch pie.