Common Cuisine |

from the kitchen of Gracie Hinton

• 2 ½ C sifted flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice
• ½ C sort shortening
• 1 ¼ C brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 28oz can pumpkin
• 1 C chopped walnuts
• 2 pkgs (12 oz ea) semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 ½ C quick cooking oats
• butterscotch morsels (optional)
• Heath Bar crumbs (optional)

Cream shortening. Add sugar and eggs one at a time. Add pumpkin and mix well. Stir in all dry ingredients, then oats. Gradually stir in nuts and chocolate chips. Drop by Tablespoons on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes. Sprinkle butterscotch morsels and Heath Bar crumbs on top.

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.

Here is a delicious alternative to the traditional Pumpkin Pie, if you can give it up. Cheesecake is one of those desserts where you have to follow the directions to make sure you’re not compromising the quality of the final product. You also want to make sure you get a springform pan. You could probably bake it in a square baking dish, but it will be difficult to get out.

Filling:

• 3 pkg (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup sugar, divided
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground nutmet
• dash ground cloves

Crust:

• 2 cups finely crushed ginger snaps
• ½ cup finely chopped pecans
• 6 Tbsp butter or margarine, melted

Crust: Mix ginger snap crumbs, pecans, and butter; press onto bottom and 2 inches up side of 9-in springform pan.

Filling: Beat cream cheese, ¾ cup of the sugar and vanilla with electric mixer until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Reserve 1 ½ cups of the plain batter. Stir remaining ¼ cup sugar, pumpkin, and spices into remaining batter. Spoon ½ of the pumpkin batter over crust; top with spoonfuls of ½ of the reserved plain batter. Repeat layers. Cut through batters with knife several times for marble effect.

Bake at 325 for 55 minutes or until center is almost set if using a silver springform pan. (Or, bake at 300 for 55 minutes if using a dark nonstick springform pan.) Loosen cake from side of pan; cool before removing side of pan. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. Makes 12 servings.

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 med onion, finely chopped
• 3 cups chicken, beef or vegetable broth
• 1 (32 oz) can pumpkin
• 1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained
• 1 (14½ oz) can ready cut tomatoes, undrained
• 1 cup cream
• 1 Tbsp curry powder
• 1½ tsp cumin
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper

In soup pot, saute onions in oil 5 minutes. Add broth, pumpkin, black beans and tomatoes. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to low and stir in cream, curry, cumin, cayenne and salt, to taste. Simmer 5 minutes; adjust seasonings and serve.

Serves 4 to 6.

I recently discovered that the new world record holding pumpkin of 2005 weighed 1,469 pounds. If I had a baby that big, I think I would feel obligated to give it a name. Personally, I like Barry Gourdy. Or The Pump-King. Imagine all the pumpkin pie.

And speaking of pumpkin pie, here is my twist on an old favorite holiday food.

Ah, I can’t even follow my own directions! This is not actually a recipe at all, just a way to modify your pie to be special.

For special pumpkin pie, use whatever recipe you wish. I use the recipe on the package of pumpkin puree. Add 2 Tablespoons of dark molasses to the filling per pie. Before pouring pie filling into crust, sprinkle about 2 Tablespoons finely chopped walnuts or pecans on pie crust. Then fill and bake according to directions.

For some reason this dinner is a favorite in our household simply because of the name. It actually goes by a different name in our house, but what’s in a name, really? The kids love it for the novelty value. I think it’s the soy sauce that gives it the interesting twist.

• 1 medium pumpkin
• 2 lbs lean ground beef
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ cup chopped celery
• ½ cup chopped onion
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp packed brown sugar
• 1 (4 oz) can sliced mushrooms
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 2 cups cooked rice

In a large skillet, brown ground beef with salt and drain off fat. Add celery and onion and cook until vegetables begin to soften a little bit.

While that is cooking, preheat oven to 375. At a diagonal angle from outside edge toward center, cut a 3-inch hole around stem of pumpkin and remove top. Remove seeds and pulp. You can discard the seeds or save them for roasting later.

In a large bowl, stir together beef mixture, soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms, soup, and rice. Pour mixture into pumpkin and replace lid. Place pumpkin on greased baking sheet and bake for about an hour until pumpkin is soft.

Serves 6 to 8.