Thanksgiving Recipes

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited. Thanksgiving combines two of my favorite things: food and family. There's nothing like sitting around the table and sharing a delicious meal with those you are closest to.

While, I do not host a Thanksgiving dinner. I do have three family thanksgiving dinners to attend. I'll be making pies and side dishes for all three of them! I don't have a large repertoire on my blog yet, but I thought I'd share a few of my Thanksgiving recipes.

No Thanksgiving is complete without a pie. Here is my go to pie crust recipe:

Pie Crust

Making pumpkin pie and want to make your own pumpkin puree? It's so easy!

Pumpkin Puree 

This is the traditional pie recipe that I use:

Pumpkin Pie

Or maybe you prefer to be nontraditional and skip the pie. Here is a delicious recipe for pumpkin roll.

Pumpkin Roll

I recently tried this pumpkin pie recipe and it was superb!

This is my favorite recipe for stuffing. It can be prepared  a day ahead and refrigerated until you're ready to bake it.

Need a way to use up leftover stuffing? Try it with my chicken and stuffing casserole.

Baked Chicken and Stuffing Casserole

 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Filling

A delicious pumpkin cake, rolled up and filled with a rich cream cheese filling. It's surprisingly simple and easy to make!

Today is Columbus Day and I've had a wonderful day off at home. It's been rainy here the last couple of days, so it's been the perfect weather to stay in and get some things done. I now have a clean house, dinner in the crock pot, and a freshly baked pumpkin roll to enjoy for dessert.

I have not had a pumpkin roll in a long time and I decided it was time to resurrect this recipe. Pumpkin recipes are all over the internet and food blogs right now. I like traditional pumpkin recipes (pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, etc.) but I don't get as creative with pumpkin as I have seen other bloggers do. So you will  see a few pumpkin recipes from me this fall, but nothing too nontraditional.

Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Filling

Ingredients

Cake:

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice 
• Dash of salt
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar 

Filling:

• 1-8 ounce package of cream cheese, softened
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Dash or two of salt
• Powdered sugar for decorating, optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a Jelly Roll pan with shortening and line with parchment paper. Grease and flour the parchment paper. Sprinkle a thin, dish towel with powdered sugar.

2. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Set Aside. Using a stand or hand mixer, beat eggs and sugar together until thick and creamy. Beat in pumpkin puree.

3. Pour batter into pan and bake for 13-15 or until the top of the cake springs back when touched with finger or toothpick (cake may bake faster if using a dark, non-stick pan). Remove from oven and loosen cake around the edges with knife. Immediately turn cake onto prepared towel. Starting with the narrow end, roll up cake and towel together. Cool completely on a wire rack.

4. Using a stand or hand mixer, whip together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar and salt and whip on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Stir in vanilla.

5. Carefully unroll cake and evenly spread filling over the cake. Roll cake back up and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for one hour before serving. Decorate with additional powdered sugar, if desired.


Slightly Adapted from Libby's

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin bread is one of my favorite fall and winter recipes. It's a quick bread that's easy to mix together and is very moist--it gets better after each day!

I remember both my Grandmother and Mother making this quite often. They usually add chopped walnuts or pecans to their bread but I leave mine plain. I've had pumpkin bread with a variety of additions, including nuts and dried cranberries.

Those versions are good, but I prefer the Pumpkin bread in all it's pumpkin glory:

Sweet, baby Mufasa wanted to see what I had made...

*Don't worry, I didn't let him near it!

Anyway, this bread is super easy to make, easy to store, and easy to freeze. You really can't mess it up.

And it's great to make for homemade gifts!

Pumpkin Bread
from my Mom, Grandma and Lynda's Recipe Box

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
3 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 cup canola oil
2/3 cup water
4 eggs, beaten
1 can of pumpkin puree or 1 3/4 cups fresh pumpkin puree

Directions:

Sift dry ingredients; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whisk wet ingredients together and fold in dry ingredients. Grease and flour two loaf pans and distribute the batter evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool loaves for ten minutes. Run a knife along edges of bread to loosen, invert onto a wire rack and cool completely. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and store in a container or Ziploc bag. Bread stays fresh up to a week and freezes well.

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie is always a traditional staple at our holiday dinners. This creamy, simple pie is delicious on it's own or with a mountain of whip cream (yes, we pile it on in our house!). It's hard to mess up pumpkin pie, but there are a few key steps that make it perfect:

Start by baking the crust before baking with the pie filling. Some people don't pre-bake; they bake the pie and crust all together. With a cream filling, the crust needs a head-start to cook thoroughly. It improves the overall texture of the pie if the crust is evenly crisp.

The filling can pose some challenges. It can be too wet and not set up properly, resulting in a mushy filling and soggy crust. I'm partial to Libby's recipe but I've tweaked it by using fresh pumpkin and simmering it with the spices(a trick learned from America's Test Kitchen). Simmering the pumpkin does two things: it allows the spices to bloom and "dries" the pumpkin--evaporating excess moisture and resulting in a better texture in the pie.

Overall, this is one the easiest pies to make, and it's so tasty!

Pumpkin Pie:
adapted from Libby's with some technique from America's Test Kitchen

1 single pie crust-recipe here
1 3/4 cup pumpkin puree-recipe here
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
Whipped cream for topping, optional

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

Crust: On a floured surface, roll out crust to 1/8 inch thickness. Transfer dough to pie plate and press the dough evenly around sides of the plate. Using a pastry brush, brush off any excess flour. Trim pie crust to a 1-inch overhang around the edges. Using index finger and thumb, flute the edges of the crust. Place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes before baking. Remove from refrigerator and line crust with a piece of parchment paper and fill with pie weights. Bake the crust for 10 minutes, remove paper and pie weights, rotate crust for even browning and bake for additional 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool.

Filling: In a small saucepan, bring pumpkin to a sputtering simmer for 5-7 minutes. Add the cinnamon, ginger and cloves and simmer for an additional 10 minutes until pumpkin is thick and spices are fragrant. Allow the pumpkin to cool slightly before proceeding. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs and whisk in the pumpkin mixture, sugar, salt and milk. Pour into the pie plate and bake for 15 minutes. Lower temperature to 350 degrees; bake an additional 20-30 minutes or until pumpkin is set. Cool completely before serving and refrigerate leftovers.

Pumpkin Puree

Last Thanksgiving, I got put in charge of the pumpkin pie. Growing up, I remember baking pumpkins with my mom so I decided to give it a try again. Making your own pumpkin is very easy and you can make it a day or freeze. Canned pumpkin is fine, but there is nothing like fresh, baked pumpkin.

I started with this beautiful pie pumpkin from our local farmers market

Cut off the top. You will need a good, sturdy chefs nice for this. Cut in a half and clean out the seeds.

Quarter the pumpkin and arrange on a cookie sheet or baking pan and bake until pumpkin is tender. Process cooked and cooled pumpkin until a smooth consistency. And silly me, I didn't get a final picture of the puree! But here is the finished product: pumpkin pie!

Pumpkin Puree
from Tasteful Cuisine

1 pie pumpkin (or as many as you want to bake)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse pumpkin thoroughly and pat dry. Cut top off of pumpkin and cut in half. Clean out the seeds and quarter pumpkin. Arrange on a non-stick cookie sheet and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until tender. Rotate the pumpkin halfway through so that cooks evenly. Cool completely. Peel the skin off the pumpkin and cut into small pieces. Transfer pumpkin to a food processor and process until a fine pulp. This mixture can be refrigerated up to 7 days or frozen for later use. Yields three cups.

Pumpkin Pie Spice

It's that time of year for everything pumpkin. Pumpkin pie spice is an essential ingredient in fall baking. But why buy another jar of spice when you can make it with spices you already have in your pantry? It's simple!

Just measure out your ingredients:

Mix Together:

And Voila! You have your own homemade pumpkin pie spice:

I like making my own for a two reasons: I rarely make pumpkin recipes, so this allows me to make a small amount for the season. It would literally take me three or four years to go through a jar, by then it's no good. It also allows me to tweak the spice how I want. If I want more cinnamon, I can adjust and add more cinnamon. If I want more spice I can add more cloves and so on.

Pumpkin Pie Spice
from Tasteful Cuisine

Yields: 1 tablespoon

2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 ground cloves

Mix spices together and store in airtight jar or container.
 
Or

Yields: 1/4 cup

2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cloves