Thanksgiving Favorites

My roommates and I are holding a mock thanksgiving this weekend before we all go home to our respective families. I’m making butternut pie and cranberry sauce because they are two of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes.

If you're interested in one more Thanksgiving dish, check out "Grandma's Oatmeal Stuffing" that I posted for Canadian Thanksgiving: http://eatgooddogood.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-grandmas-oatmeal-dressing-for.html

Cranberry sauce

Before Cooking

Chill the Finished Product

Boil the Cranberries

Ingredients

1 bag of cranberries

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

Preparation

-Most bags of cranberries have a recipe for cranberry sauce on them but if yours doesn’t this is the basic recipe

-Add 1c. water and 1c. sugar to pot

-Bring to boil

-Add cranberries

-Bring to boil again

-Continue boiling at lower temperature for 10 min, stirring occasionally, then remove and chill in fridge

*If you like, you can also strain the sauce but I like mine with whole berries

Butternut Pie (its almost indistinguishable from pumpkin pie-just a little bit more caramel I taste and texture)

I’m using a whole butternut and making my puree from scratch, you can also use a pie pumpkin (smaller and sweeter than a carving pumpkin) or canned pumpkin puree (not canned pumpkin pie filling)

Puree

*Skip this if you’re using canned pumpkin

-Cut the butternut or pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy parts

-Place upside down in a pan and bake at 350 until tender (mine took around 1 ½ hours, but you can check by pulling it out, flipping over one of the halves and piercing with a fork, if its tender its done)

-Scoop out the flesh and puree in a blender until smooth, refrigerate until used

Filling

Ingredients

1 small can ( 15 oz) pumpkin puree/1 cup homemade pumpkin or butternut puree

1 tsp cinnamon

¾ tsp ginger

½ tsp mace

OR

2 ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice

¼ tsp each ground cloves, nutmeg, allspice

¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

3 eggs

1 cup milk

Preparation

-Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl, pour into pie shell

-bake at 450 for ten minutes

-bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes or until knife comes out clean when inserted in center

-Serve warm or cool with whipped cream

Pastry

Ingredients

3 cups unbleached flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup unsalted butter (softened)

2/3 cup (or less) ice cold water

Preparation

-cut together all ingredients except water with fork or pastry blender

-quickly stir in ice water and form into two flattened balls, add more water if needed for consistency, do not overwork

-flour board and rolling pin

-roll out into two circles about 1/8 inch, will make 2 pastry crusts (two bottom crusts or one top and one bottom)

Serve with whipped cream!

Shopping list

Cranberry sauce

1 bag of cranberries

white sugar

Pumpkin/Butternut Pie

1 small can (15 oz) pumpkin puree/1 butternut squash/1 pie pumpkin

            -pumpkin pie spice- OR –cinnamon +ginger + mace

ground cloves

nutmeg

allspice

dark brown sugar

eggs

milk

unbleached flour

salt

baking powder

unsalted butter 

whipped cream

Drop of Thanksgiving ingredients and recipes at Chagrin Falls Park Community Center!