Pecan Pie

We had a friend visiting from Italy in early October. It was his first trip to the US and of course I was going to cook, but the question became WHAT? There was no way I was going to fix anything Italian for this man. I wanted something truly American. I racked my brain……… There was no way I was going to fry chicken, it’s just too messy and it’s not something I really mastered anyway. There are just too many places to get good fried chicken, so I never make it at home. Then I thought about a big pot of Gumbo but decided that that was too regional. I wanted something that would represent this country as a whole when the idea struck me, Thanksgiving! 

Now this is a meal that is as traditionally American as anything else I could think of and something that they really don’t do in Europe. So I order my turkey and got ready to make my traditional Thanksgiving meal. Now as I have shared before I’m not really a baker, but we have a store in our area that makes the most wonderful Apple Pie on the planet and as I was doing the rest of the meal on my own decided that I could cheat on the dessert. So as I headed off to the store for last minute supplies on the Monday morning that we were hosting this bash and I sent my husband to pick up the pies. As I was perusing the produce department my phone rang. It was my husband, the store where we buy the pies is closed on Monday ( something we were not aware of) so there would be no Apple Pie for dessert. Great, I thought, just what I need right now. What am I going to do for dessert. I wandered through the bakery department, and nothing looked good. Shoot, I’m in trouble now.

Then it came to me. I have pecans! I’ll make Pecan Pie. It’s easy. Now, I have only made this once or twice in my life but my mom had a recipe that I scribbled down on a piece of paper and stuck in my little book of recipes years ago. I knew I needed Corn Syrup, but couldn’t remember much else, so I picked up a couple of frozen pie shells (remember I don’t bake), and the corn syrup and headed home to make pies before I started in on the rest of the meal. I open up my recipe book and found the recipe, well it was sort of a recipe, as all it was a list of the ingredients.  Wonderful! Thank good for google and people like us who post complete recipes online. I was able to figure out the required temperature and cooking time and I got those babies in the oven.

As it turned out the Pecan Pie was a hit. Our guest enjoyed it so much I sent him back to his hotel with a big piece for his breakfast the next morning and promised to send the recipe so he could make it back home. I figured as long as I’m writing the recipe down for him, I might as well share it with the rest of you.

Give it a try, it’s the easiest way to impress guests that I have found.