Mama's (very large) Pecan Pie. 'Nuff said...

Last week I had an order for a pecan pie for an almost-family friend.  The recipient is the sister to a sister-in-law.  It was her birthday and she didn't want any sort of cake so her sweet spouse took it upon himself to order her favorite dessert:  pecan pie.

Like any child of the Deep South, there's only one pecan pie recipe to make.  Mama's.  She's made it for as long as I can remember, and indeed, the recipe is older than I am, being jotted down several years before I was born.

Favorite Child, aka Brother #4, was born in 1955, after almost a week of labor, some of it spent in traction from a slipped cervical disk (I'm so thankful he wasn't a girl or else I wouldn't be here tonight writing to you). It took a little while for her to recover from the birthing process, having had four sons in nine years time. Brother #4 was born in late summer and she was taking a noon-time rest, watching the news on WKRG out of Mobile, Alabama while waiting on As the World Turns and The Guiding Light to come on.  WKRG still has a local chef/cook come into the studio at noon, the same as the station did back in 1955.

Mama says that it was getting on closer to Thanksgiving after Brother #4 was born when WKRG premiered this pecan pie recipe.  She grabbed pencil and paper and wrote down the ingredients, much like I wrote them down some twenty years ago.

This recipe makes a deep dish ten inch pecan pie or two eight inch pies.  You'll notice there isn't a set amount of pecans -- that's entirely up to user discretion!

Here's what you do:

Beat five eggs until foamy and lemon-y in color.

Slowly add one cup sugar until well mixed.

Add one cup white corn syrup.

I can't tell ONE bit of difference between Karo brand

corn syrup and generic corn syrup.  Save your

dollars for something important like mayonnaise.

Add five tablespoons of melted butter.

Add vanilla.

I love using the little medicine dispenser cups for flavorings.

They have accurate measurements right on the cup

and are a whole lot of handy!

Pour into prepared unbaked crusts with desired amounts of pecans.

The fancy one on the left was for the client.  The ugly one on the right

was for fambly.  We like our pies with chopped pecans.  Whole halves
(if that makes any sense) are pretty in a pie, but won't cut worth a flip.

AND someone always eats out the center pecan within moments of coming 

out of the oven.  Sad, but true.  Sometimes that someone is me.

Use as many or as little pecans as you want here.  I used one a half cups

in the big pie and only a cup in the little one.

I like to put the pies on baking sheets to go into a 350 F. preheated oven.  They almost never cook over on a sheet.  Just let one go into the oven without a sheet, though.  That's one awful mess to clean up.

Bake until the center is set, anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes.  

Tadadaaaaaaa!

Here are the ingredients again for one deep dish ten inch pecan pie or two thinner eight inch pies:

One or two unbaked pie crusts

Five eggs

One cup sugar

One cup white corn syrup

Five tablespoons melted butter

One teaspoon vanilla

Pinch of salt (I omit this, using salted butter)

Pecans

Put it together like I did and you're sure to have deliciousness in an hour!

Y'all enjoy. 

<3 Mary

A Tale of Two Banana Nut Breads

I'm an absolutely horrible blogger, the posts coming in fits and spells.  I'd thought about doing a histiocytosis awareness post back in September when it was Histiocytosis Awareness Month.  I thought about doing another dental visit post similar to the last one.  I also thought about doing a combined post, championing histio awareness and dentistry, considering most of us adults with the disease (even in remission) seem to have a host of dental difficulties.  A recipe post on the fresh apple cake was almost written but, at the last moment, it was decided that posting it straight to the notes in FB would be a lot easier. I'd even considered writing a post on how I've gotten over food, previously my best friend, and lost 60 pounds this spring/summer/fall.   Days and weeks came and went.  Words didn't gel together.  Those five posts didn't get written.

And so it goes.  There's nothing much to tell these days, no amusing stories coming forth from Mama, no misadventures beyond taking a wrong interstate and driving completely around Birmingham, Alabama.

And it isn't that there's less free time to be a better blogger.  Free time exists.  Life gets complicated; minds get tired of thinking.  At the end of the day, I'd rather open a book and disappear into it than think another thought. Unless the book is thought provoking.  I like thought-provoking books...

Annnnyways.  I'm using a lot of words to apologize for not keeping to my own set standard of a post a week (on average).  I'll try to do better.  I will.

To kick off getting on the proverbial bandwagon, I've two recipes for Banana Nut Bread.  TWO.  Both of them start with a cake mix.  I'd been to the Pig earlier in the week and spotted a big bag of bananas in the reduced-for-quick-sale produce cart.  There must've been five pounds of bananas in the bag for a dollar.  A dollar!  Even after sharing half with Mama, there was still a huge bunch of bananas to do something with.

 Holidays are quickly approaching.  What better time to get a headstart on holiday baking?  Banana nut bread freezes very well, you know...

Except there were other cakes to be made and icing to be whipped and cardboard to be cut and covered.  I needed a recipe that wouldn't require a lot of preparation.  I googled recipes for banana nut breads and combined a couple of them to come up with two very tasty, quick and easy recipes beginning with butter cake mixes:  Pumpkin Spice Pudding Banana Nut Bread aka The One with Pudding In It, and Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread.  I didn't photograph for tutorials;  just the ingredients and finished breads.

So, without another moment's procrastination, here are the ingredients for
Pumpkin Spice Banana Nut Bread

One butter golden cake mix
Four eggs
One half cup oil
Two to three bananas - mashed
Three fourths cup of buttermilk
One box of Jello brand instant pumpkin spice pudding mix
One teaspoon vanilla
One cup nuts

Despite all the directions to combine all the wet ingredients first and then add all the dry ingredients, I absolutely dumped everything but the pecans together in the KitchenAid bowl and let it do the work all at once.  Life is easier if you plow around the stumps.  It worked a charm.  Try, yourself, and see if it doesn't.  Stir in the pecans when it's all mixed well.

Pour into two greased and floured loaf pans or a small bundt pan.

Bake at 350 for an hour or so until it's done.
                                     

Maybe I should've rechopped Mama's chopped pecans.

Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread

Five bananas - smashed

Three eggs

One butter cake mix

Eight ounces cream cheese - room temperature

One tablespoon vanilla

One cup chopped pecans

Seriously.  Just dump everything together and mix well, stirring in the pecans before pouring into two greased and floured loaf pans.

These are larger sized loaf pans 8 x 4 x 2 1/2.  If you've smaller

loaf pans, best to grease and flour one more.

Bake at 350 and hour or so until done.

At the point this was photographed, I was already well

into an insulin response over having consumed a slice of the

first banana nut bread.  It's a fuzzy photo.  My body was

feeling fuzzy and warm, too!

Both recipes yield a less bread-like i.e. dense loaf of tasty bread.  The pudding recipe, with oil in it, not to mention buttermilk, definitely is the moister of the two.  And the flavor the pumpkin spice pudding gives it is out of this world.  BUT, the cream cheese and banana-ness of the second recipe???  It's difficult to decide which recipe is the better one.

I've only found pumpkin spice pudding at WalMart.  Other food bloggers had been ranting and raving over it and I had to have it also.  It's worth tracking down, but you can use whatever pudding tickles your taste buds.  The original recipe had, of all things, instant banana pudding in it!

There.  It's a two-fer:  Two recipes for banana nut bread in one blog post after a month's slacking...

Y'all enjoy!

Praline Bacon: Deliciousness to Celebrate Every Breath

It's not my recipe.  I'd stumbled upon it on...well...on stumbleupon one evening several years ago.  NPR's John Burnett says it came from New Orleans and that's probably true:  there's not a single city that does pralines any better.  Praline bacon is a quick side to brunch, a delicious appetizer on a reception table, a late night indulgence when indulgence calls for salty and sweet together.  Or when cholesterol, brown sugar and pecans are craved simultaneously.  Even if you don't eat pork, you may want to fix this for someone that does, if only for the opportunity to be close to it just once.

I'd baked this a day ahead.  Once cooked, the bacon will keep in the 

fridge for a week or so.  I've also prepared it well in advance and frozen it

between sheets of wax paper in the big ziploc bags, the only

adverse affect to it being a slow diminishing of quantity due 

to pilfering by the cook!

The recipe is simple.  Three ingredients:
bacon
brown sugar (two cups or so)
chopped pecans

There are (almost) always roasted chopped pecans in 

the freezer here.  It's handy to have them ready to go

in a cheesecake crust or to add a crunch to chicken salad

or for a pan of praline bacon.

Make the clean-up easy on yourself.  Line a pan with foil and place bacon strips in single thickness in it.

If you don't need the whole pack of bacon praline-ated but despise storing a 

partial pack of it (it seems to get forgotten about until too late 

in the fridge here) go ahead and cook it.

And don't forget to save the grease for the potatoes!

Bake in a preheated oven at 425 Fahrenheit for ten minutes.  In the mean time, put the brown sugar and pecans in one of these big ziplock bags for coating the bacon.  You can throw the mixture in the freezer afterward and have on hand for the next batch of praline bacon.

If you're a lover of bacon, there will be another batch.

Drain off the bacon grease and put all the bacon in the brown sugar/pecan mixture. 

Seal the bag and give it all a good shake, flopping as only bag fulls of bacon can, to make sure all the slices are coated.

Return to the  pan.  I like to sprinkle a few more pecans on top.  You can't ever have too many pecans.

Bake for ten minutes more (or less - remember, the oven here bakes a few degrees cooler) and voila!!!

Praline bacon!

For quality control's sake, go ahead and have a slice of it, 

then quickly put it away if cooking for another day. 

Y'all enjoy!

 

Mrs. Linda's Cranberry Salad: Pretty and Particularly Palatable

Christy Jordan doesn't know what she's started, putting Southern Plate on Facebook.  Or maybe she did.  Does.  I knew her when her fans weren't numbered in the hundreds yet.

Truth be told, she helped start my blogging career, such as it is.  You see, comments I'd posted in response to her status attracted the attention of Cindy (of Sweet Tea With Cindy fame) and Mrs. Diane.  I consider them Facebook Fambly; they've become more than friends via an electronic device.  They're souls I care about.

Annnyway, Cindy sweet-talked me into writing a guest post for her Front Porch Fridays.  A week later Mayree's debuted.  Mrs. Diane, observant Southerner that she is, connected a slew of like-minded souls all fans of Southern Plate, together on Facebook.  We're kind of an assorted lot spanning the globe from Alaska to the tip of Florida.  And last week she started an informal group "Thanksgiving First".
Sharings of Thanksgiving mishaps, blessings, and recipes have been going on in abundance in there.  It's delightful.

Earlier in the week Mrs. Linda mentioned her cranberry salad.  My mouth started watering, imagining the flavors worked together.  I knew it had to be made in my kitchen.  I did.  I made it.  It's a full week before Thanksgiving, so I'll be eating it morning, noon, and night for a few days but ohhhhh, it's worth it.

I didn't take a photo of the assembled ingredients before I started.  Y'all know me by now, I'm doing other stuff too and there's not always room (you got me -- there's not always the thought) to get it all together first.  In complete reverse order of what I normally do y'all are getting the ingredients and amounts first and then watch for the directions, okay?

Mrs. Linda's Cranberry Salad
one package fresh cranberries
two cups sugar
one large can crushed pineapple
one bag miniature marshmallows
one cup pecans
one and a half cup heavy whipping cream

Wash

and drain the cranberries.

Put in food processor and pulse until desired chopped-ness is reached, stirring sides down as necessary to process all berries.

Put into container and add two cups of sugar to begin drawing juices.  I put mine, covered, in the refrigerator overnight.

I took them out once last night and stirred the sugar into the berries.  I also had a bite.  Cranberries, to me, have the tartness of a Granny Smith apple with three times the flavor.

I had business out of the house this morning.  I took the cranberries out of the fridge and left them on the counter, to warm to room temperature and hasten the 'drawing' process.  I remembered to put the KitchenAid bowl and whisk in the refrigerator in preparation for whipping the cream.

Pecans!  Mrs. Linda says to use at least a cup of pecans in this.  This is a cup of pecans lagniappe.  And my little nut chopper.  Mama has one.  Her's was purchased with S & H Green Stamps the year after I was born and is made of glass.  We found this one at Dirt Cheap, sans lids.  I love it.

Open and drain the pineapple.  I'm not exactly sure if the pineapple needs to be drained.  There was less than a cup of liquid and more than enough marshmallows to soak it up.  I'll see if she won't comment and let us know for sure.

 Those cranberries are beautiful!  Add the drained crushed pineapple to them and stir 'til blended.

Can you see what a fine job the little chopper/grinder thingie does of making the pecans uniformly sized?  I can't imagine cooking anything with chopped nuts in it without running them thru this contraption.

Whip the heavy cream.  I should have probably used the whole pint of it but wanted to keep some for the ganache on one of the chocolate overload cakes going out this weekend.  I used 12 ounces in the KitchenAid with the whisk.

It takes very little time to get nice thick cream.  I did not have a bite, although I seriously thought about it.

Putting the paddle on the mixer, add the cranberry/pineapple mixture a spoon at a time, on the lowest speed.

This Artisan model has a VERY slow slow speed and incorporated the fruit into the whipped cream just beautifully.  Add pecans and mix just until blended.

It's so pretty!  I wasn't expecting it to be this festive!!! I know that's a bunch of exclamation marks going on there but really, I was surprised at how colorful the stuff is.

Take off the stand and add marshmallows, stirring just until mixed through and through.

Take the finished product, put in a pretty bowl, set it somewhere neat in your house and photograph it.

Don't forget to water the plant you've obviously forgotten to water several times while you're in there.

This made a LOT of salad.  And I do mean a lot.  It's going to be a perfect side for Thanksgiving.  The flavor of it?  Well!  It's a cranberry salad, not a relish, and certainly nowhere close to the thick sweetness of a congealed salad.  The cranberries are tart and sweet, but not puckery tart, just wake-the-mouth-up tart. The pineapple is an incredible flavor to go with the berries, also not too sweet, with the flavor standing alone.  The pecans?  Sheer Southerness with their slightly buttery crunch.  For some reason, the marshmallows almost taste toasted.  I don't know if it's the brand or what, but their smoothness in the midst of all the other textures, and sweetness makes this an awesome salad.  I forgot that the whipped cream made it a coronary event.  The effect is has on the salad reminds me of sour cream on apple pie -- it completes it.

I wish I could get fresh cranberries in the summer 'cause this would be one heat-busting salad to have in the fridge.  As it is, though, I'm going to enjoy it the next couple of days, making it again next week.  Thank you, Mrs. Linda, for sharing it with us.