Pumpkin-Ricotta Pie

Another great recipe from Food Network. We always have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but I wanted to make it more interesting than the traditional pumpkin pie that I usually make. This recipe intrigued me because it’s half pure pumpkin and half ricotta cheese. It came out moist and delicious. The cream cheese crust is made from scratch—don’t worry, it’s not that complicated to make, as you will see if you try this recipe. 

Chocolate Pecan Pie

I made this easy-to-make but delicious dessert for our Thanksgiving dinner. It's adapted from Emeril Lagasse's recipe, and it's a welcome change from the standard pecan pie, which always tends to be cloyingly sweet. The addition of chocolate tempered the sweetness perfectly. The original recipe called for a caramel sauce for garnish, but I did away with it because it would have made the pie too sweet. Finally, I always try to make my crust from scratch because it's not really that difficult to make, but I have to admit that for this pie I used a pre-made crust, which I found in my daughter's freezer -- it wasn't too bad.

A Thanksgiving Dinner, Winchester, MA, 2011

What could be more comforting than sitting at dinner with your beloved family, with the table laden with dishes galore that you've been cooking for the past two or three days, and the whole house redolent with the  deliciously mingled aromas of all that food? This is what my family had for our Thanksgiving Dinner this year -- the recipes for some of them are already posted on this blog, and the rest I will try to post as soon as possible. My daughter did this brined fresh (not frozen) turkey, which was first roasted in their Egg Grill and then finished in the oven--it was incredibly juicy and so flavorful.