Common Cuisine |

The secret to having fabulous pot pie is to use tasty cooked chicken. Dawn likes to season and roast a whole chicken for this recipe, or pan-fry two or three chicken breasts with garlic, lemon pepper, and poultry seasoning until golden.

• 1 cup each, chopped: onion, celery, carrots
• ½ cup peas
• 1/3 cup butter
• ½ cup flour
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup milk
• 1½ tsp poultry seasoning
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper
• 4 cups chopped cooked chicken
• 1 prepared pie crust

Saute onion, celery and carrots in butter for 10 minutes. Add flour to mixture, stirring well; cook one minute, stirring constantly.

Preheat oven to 400°. Combine broth and milk; gradually stir into vegetable mixture. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and bubbly. Stir in poultry seasoning, salt and pepper. Add chicken and peas, stirring well.

Pour chicken mixture into greased shallow 2 qt casserole. Top with pastry, and slit with a few air vents. Bake for 40 minutes, until crust is golden brown. Serves 6.

• 1 C crushed pretzels
• 1 C granulated sugar
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 C powdered sugar
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 8 oz whipped topping
• 1 can pie filling (cherry, blueberry, blackberry, etc)

In 9″ x 13″ pan, combine crushed pretzels, granulated sugar and melted butter. Press firmly into pan to form crust.

In medium bowl, cream together powdered sugar and cream cheese. Fold in whipped topping and spread over crust.

Spread pie filling over cream cheese mixture. Refrigerate 2-3 hours before serving.

Makes 12-24 servings, depending how large you cut the pieces!

Last weekend’s Thanksgiving feast almost blew our collective minds with how tasty everything was. Actually, as we tried to express how good everything was, we kept trying to find just the right superlatives. We agreed that we should establish a sort of best-of book, since so many of the recipes were the best we had ever had. We jokingly titled this hypothetical publication, Obscenely Good Recipes, due to the responses elicited by the taste testers.

Allow me to elaborate our menu:

• Turkey with Sausage Stuffing
• Mashed Potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes
• Rosemary Roasted Winter Vegetables
• Green Peas and Baby Onions
• Jellied Cranberry Sauce, still shaped like the can
• Pecan Crunch Pie
• Cherry Pie
• Pumpkin Crisp

We had the best ever Pecan Crunch Pie to start off the weekend. It actually got sampled Wednesday night, because we figured it might get overshadowed on Thursday. And that was an excellent decision, although our taste test ended up being half the pie!

The turkey was incredibly moist, even though it had been cooked without a tent. We suspect this was due to the sage butter infusion: Dawn softened some butter, stirred in chopped fresh sage, molded it into a log, and froze it in a sandwich bag for 10 minutes. Then she sliced the butter into dimes and slid the pieces between the skin and the meat. The center cavity of the turkey also was stuffed with some savory items, including a whole onion. Add to this a studious attention to basting the bird, and it came out with so much flavor it made us weak in the knees.

When it came my turn to sample the sausage stuffing, my only response was to pick up the dish and run from the room, shouting €œI’ll see you tomorrow!€ Then I relented and returned it, seeing that there was more than enough to share and I wanted to pair it with the turkey. But it was that good.

Whit made her sweet potatoes with walnut crunch topping for the third year in a row. Same recipe every time, but we all agreed that these turned out the best ever. Perhaps the third time is just automatically charmed.

I tried a new recipe for roasted vegetables. Due to a kitchen time-share scheduling conflict, I ended up actually fire-roasting them outside on the grill. I used carrots, parsnips, turnips, baby tomatoes, whole garlic cloves and fennel. It was both a pungent and flavorful treat! However, my personal opinion of the result was that they should be part of a simpler meal, so they can shine instead of competing with the traditional Thanksgiving spread. Next time I might also use fewer different vegetables, so the ones that are there can speak for themselves. But I can promise you, there will be a next time. Roasted veggies are going to become part of my regular lineup.

Other indulgent dishes were spread out over the weekend. On Friday, we had Next Day Turkey Soup with Dumplings for lunch, followed by Dawn’s famous Artichoke Dip, served with Wheat Thins and crudites, during the game. I love the word crudite (CROO-dih-tee), because it makes cut up veggies sound so exotic!

While we decorated the tree Saturday evening, we snacked on peppermint bark (new family favorite), spiced pecans, and sugar plums. All are simple to make and store well. I also think they are a complimentary trio. Unfortunately the item which goes the fastest, the pecans, are also the most expensive. Maybe a cup of peanuts or mixed nuts served alongside the pecans would make them last longer?

And for Sunday brunch, Dawn made stuffed french toast. Again, this is a simple dish. It is assembled the night before, to allow the eggs to soak into the bread. It can be served with syrup, but it is certainly sweet enough to stand alone. I think the perfect companion for this breakfast would be a bowl full of clementines and a pot of coffee.

Hard to believe, but I think that covers all the exceptional recipes we trotted out over the weekend. Maybe you found something there to inspire you for a future event, even if it is as ordinary as a Saturday morning.

• 1 (7-ounce) package caramels
• ¼ C evaporated milk
• ¾ C chopped pecans, divided
• 1 9-inch chocolate crumb pie crust
• 6 oz cream cheese, softened
• ½ C sour cream
• 1 ¼ C milk
• 1 (3.9-oz) pkg chocolate instant pudding mix
• ½ C fudge topping

Place caramels and evaporated milk in a heavy saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring continually, until smooth, about 5 minutes. Stir in ½ C chopped pecans. Pour into pie crust.

Combine cream cheese, sour cream and milk in a blender. Process until smooth. Add pudding mix; process for about 30 seconds longer.

Pour pudding mixture over caramel layer, covering evenly. Chill, loosely covered, until set, about 15 minutes.

Drizzle fudge topping over pudding layer in a decorative pattern. Sprinkle top of cake with remaining pecans. Chill, loosely covered, until serving time.

Makes 12 servings.

I think that when someone coined the phrase “Easy as Pie,” they didn’t appreciate how complicated a pie can be. Sure, it’s just crust and filling, but seriously, who really knows how to crimp a perfect edge? Or how to cut just the right size vents in the crust? Or for that matter, how to make the crust in the first place? It seems to me that pie making is more of an art form than the easiest thing in the world.

For the pie-craft impaired, as well as for the pie artists among us, there are many more accessories than I ever knew existed. Aside from a wealth of sizes and types of pie pans, and pastry making tools, there are beads for holding down air bubbles while you pre-bake a crust. There are rotary cutters that give you the perfect crimped edge. There are rings you put over the edge of your crust to keep it from overbrowning (after you put all the effort into the perfectly crimped edge, you want to save it). And for the truly impaired (or compulsive), there is a little tool that perforates your pie in just the right places so you can cut professional size pieces!

One of the favorite accessories I have discovered is a ceramic blackbird that you build into the center of your pie, that vents the top crust. What a terrifically cute idea! It makes me want to bake a two-crust pie just so I can use the little bird to vent it. Perhaps next summer, when I bake my first annual fresh blackberry pie, will be the perfect opportunity.

Once you have baked your perfect pie, there are even special pie baskets for carrying the pie to the party. I love mine and don’t know how I would live without it. It even has two layers, so I can take either two identical pies or give my tasters their choice of culinary temptation. Unfortunately, Royce Craft Baskets, who made my pie basket, is no longer in business (although you can still find their products on eBay). However, there are several brands of pie baskets if you choose to look for one. Just be sure to look for those two levels, because making two pies is as easy as one pie, and it doubles the rewards when you show up with your scene-stealing masterpiece.

Now we’re talking. The almond carries the apple to a higher plane of existence. Sign me up for seconds!

• 1 Pillsbuy Pie crust
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ cup flour
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• three shakes of salt
• 8 cups thinly sliced apples (about 8 medium)

Crumb Topping:

• ½ cup all purpose flour
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• ½ cup cold butter
• ½ cup chopped almonds

Heat oven to 425. Put pie crust in 9″ pie plate. Mix sugar, flour, salt, and almond extract in large bowl. Stir in apples. Put mixture in pie plate.

Mix Crumb Topping ingredients in medium bowl until crumbly. One way to do this is by putting all into a food processor and pulsing a few times. Sprinkle topping over apple mixture.

Bake 50 minutes. Cover with a sheet of foil during last 10 minutes.

Serves 8.

This is my Nana’s recipe. Custard must be an old-fashioned word for jellied sauce; this comes out more like a tart. She makes her pie crust from scratch; I buy mine. There are ways I try to preserve homestyle cooking, and then there are ways I compromise in light of my available time.

• 1 qt strawberries
• 1 C sugar
• 3 T cornstarch
• 1 T butter
• 1 refrigerated Pie Crust (or make your own from scratch)

Prepare pie crust as directed; let cool.

Divide the berries into two parts, putting the best berries in one part. Put the less perfect berries into a sauce pan; add sugar and cornstarch.

To make the custard, mash the berries with a potato masher. Cook slowly, stirring continuously. When the mixture is thick and clear, add butter.

Place custard in baked pie crust. Slice the better berries and arrange on top of the custard. Serve with whipped cream.

For best results buy the strawberries, make the pie and serve it in the same day.

This amount of strawberries makes for an adequate, if smallish pie; for a fuller pie, add more strawberries (up to double) while leaving the remaining ingredients constant.

For more on my opinion of pie crust, read on.