Prize Winning Caramel Apple Pie

This is one of my favorite desserts and I know you will LOVE it.  Honey would be seriously disappointed if I didn’t share that I did win 1st place in the pie division with this recipe.  It almost always disappears in the blink of an eye at family gatherings and is just down right yummy. This year, the Chocolate Truffle Pie was the first to go but the Caramel Apple was gone by dinner.  More on the Chocolate Truffle Pie soon.  I sadly didn't take any pictures and wanted to make sure it was a winner before I shared it with y'all.  

Prize Winning Caramel Apple Pie

After trying several recipes, I found fabulous inspiration on Allrecipes.com HERE.  I tweaked it to adjust it how I love it and hope y’all will enjoy this family holiday staple. 

Prize Winning Caramel Apple Pie

1 unbaked double pie crust

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

7-8 Granny Smith apples, peeleKd, cored, and thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Melt butter in a saucepan.  Stir in flour to form a past.  Add water, sugar, and brown sugar and bring to boil.  Reduce temperature to low and let caramel simmer for about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and add cinnamon and vanilla.  

Place the bottom crust into the bottom of your greased deep dish pie pan. Fill with apples and mound the apples slightly.  Pour about 1/2 to 2/3 cup of caramel sauce on top of apples.  Cover apples with lattice work from second pie crust.  Gently pour remaining sauce over lattice and let sauce seep into pie.  Pour slowly.  Seriously, pour slowly to ensure that the sauce does not make a huge mess and waste precious yummy goodness.  Using a pastry brush, gently cover lattice work with sauce.  This will make your crust AMAZING.  

Bake 15 minutes in your preheated oven.  Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degress and bake an additional 35-45 minutes until sauce bubbles.  It is hard to know if your apples are tender.  I suggest placing your pie toward the bottom of your oven to keep the top from burning.  

This pie is AMAZING.  Promise.  You and your family will love it.  Honey cannot wait to have a piece and I had to bake this without him around to obtain decent pictures that don’t include a fork getting a bite of pie.  

Ideas for the 'Kid's Table' & the 'Adult Table' during Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we will have 9 little ones at the Thanksgiving gathering.  What are two things that can help make Thanksgiving a little easier on the moms with littles?  Snacks and activities.

I found this cute snack idea from Handmade in the Heartland that can also be used as a 'teachable moment' during the wait for the big feast.  They are the perfect little snack and can be quickly thrown together for your Thanksgiving feast.  I made several for the Princess and C-man's classes today and the kids LOVED them.  The ziploc bags aren't as cute as cellophane bags but I think the ability to reseal the snack outweighs the 'cute' factor.  That, and, yes, I was out of cellophane bags and it was 9:30 p.m. 

You can download the FREE printable HERE. 

C-Man at the 3rd Grade Thanksgiving Feast

The activities planned to keep the kids somewhat busy are a coloring page, a list of what they are thankful for, and a word search.  I found these at I Should Be Mopping the Floor and you can download the coloring sheet HERE, the word search HERE, and the Thankful List HERE.

I am most excited about this new addition to Thanksgiving.  (fingers crossed that everyone plays along.)  During dinner, we will have ‘Turkey Talk’ questions such as ‘What makes you laugh the hardest?’, ‘What is the hardest decision you have ever made?’, ‘What is your most beloved possession?’, ‘What is your favorite Bible verse and why?’, ‘What was your favorite childhood book?’, ‘What kind of student were you?’, ‘If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?’, ‘What are five things you wouldn’t want to live without?’, ‘What is the bravest thing you have ever done?’ and many more.  You can download a printable list Here on Scribd. 

I really hope that everyone enjoys it and hope we might even learn something new about one another.  My grandparents would be so proud!  I can almost see my 'Dear' smiling with pride about the family gathering.

After dinner, our family annually plays our Pictionary Relay Race.  You can read more about this really FUN tradition with a free printable word page to get you started Here. 



Safe Travels everyone!
Hope

A Tale of Two Pecan Pies - Chocolate Pecan Pie & Caramel Pecan Pie

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved Thanksgiving and especially loved dessert, but didn't love pecan pie because, "It gets stuck in my teeth and on the top of my mouth!!!".  The little girl grew up and decided to make her own pecan pies WITHOUT the sticky syrup stuff.  And so begins the 'Tale of Two Pecan Pies'.

I have worked on and tweaked this recipes for a while before sharing them with y'all.  I imagine I will continue tweaking them because, well, that's just how I roll.  Thankfully, Honey and the children don't seem to mind.  I always know when I've found the 'perfect' combination because my taste testers always let me know.  This weekend, I found what I think is the perfect combination for one of these pies and pretty darn close for the other.

Chocolate Pecan Pie

3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon milk (I use skim because that is what's in the fridge)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups pecans
1/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, beat eggs until foamy and stir in melted butter.  Stir in the brown sugar, white sugar and flour; mix well.  Last add milk, vanilla, and nuts; mix well.  Place prepared pie crust into a greased deep dish pie plate.  Evenly distribute mini chocolate chips on top of the pie crust.  Pour sugar, butter, pecan mixture into your unbaked pie shell on top of chocolate chips.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes and 325 for 20 minutes or until done.  Make sure you place your pie toward the bottom 1/3 of your oven so the top of your pie doesn't burn.

If you are feeling a little adventurous add about 3 tablespoons of bourbon to your mixture before baking.

What you will need

What your pre-baked pie will look like

Baked Chocolate Pecan Pie

Chocolate Pecan Pie

Chocolate Pecan Pie

 I think that this recipe has just the right combination of chocolate, pecans, and buttery goodness without the sticky syrup.  Hope y'all enjoy!

Caramel Pecan Pie

1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup of milk
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2/3 cup of Smucker's Caramel Ice Cream topping
1 1/2 cup pecan halves
1 9 inch unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine caramel sauce, butter and milk in a saucepan over low heat and stir until smooth.  Remove from heat and set aside.  In a large bowl, combine sugar, eggs, and vanilla.  Gradually mix in melted caramel mixture.  Stir in pecans.  Pour filling into unbaked pie crust.  Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and the pie sets.

What you will need for your Caramel Pecan Pie

Baked Caramel Pecan Pie

Caramel Pecan Pie

Both Pies Side by Side

 So how do the two compare?  The Caramel Pecan Pie looks prettier baked and slices easier, but the taste of the Chocolate Pecan Pie wins.  I distributed slices of both to the neighbors for their opinions.  Honey and the neighbors loved both pies but declared that the Chocolate Pecan was just a little better.

Y'all let me know what y'all think! Now, I'm off to clean house.

Hope

A Turkey Painting Play Date

Disclaimer - I did NOT grow up drawing or painting and tried my best to stay as far away from visual art as possible.  I loved performance art and music.  I did not enjoy coloring and used to have a hard time drawing a stick figure.  Thankfully, things have changed.  A few years ago, I took a painting class and fell in love with painting.  I write all of this to assure you that no your art background, you can absolutely pull off the following. 

The 'Sample' Painting (I wasn't at all happy with the feather colors & created some different colors for the girls)

A couple of weeks ago I let the Princess invite 6 classmates over for a 'Painting' play date.  The Princess and the Baby LOVE to paint and I had been wanting to have them paint Thanksgiving Turkeys for a while to hang in the house during November.  Having a big group paint would be fine, right?  Thankfully, it was.  The girls had a blast and were so very proud of their creations.

First, I purchased eight 16 x 20 canvases from Hobby Lobby that sells 2 packs for $8.  I also purchased acrylic paints, foam brushes to paint the background color, and a few small brushes (I already owned several medium sized brushes).  You will need the following paint colors, Burnt Orange or Georgia Clay (background), Dark Chocolate (Turkey body), Medium Green (Feather), Santa Red (Feather), Banana Cream (Feather), Jack-O-Lantern (Feather), Black (eyes and outline).  The paints I chose were all 'Americana' brand simply because they were the cheapest.

I set the paint area up in our garage with four card tables.  Thankfully, the paint came off of my tables but, in hindsight, I should have placed cheap vinyl tablecloths on top of each table.  Mom fail!  Each place had a canvas,  cup of water, 3 brushes (foam, medium brush & small detail brush), a paper plate with the globs of the paints needed for their painting, a piece of white chalk, and several paper towels for dabbing.  I also had a hairdryer plugged in close by to help with the drying process at the end of the paint session.  Everything except the paint was set up and ready when I left to pick up the Princess and her friends from school.

 As soon as we arrived from school I had the girls deposit their backpacks, quickly get aprons on, and sit at a place for instructions.  I showed the girls the 'sample' and explained how they would paint their turkey.  The first step was to paint the background color.  I went around to each girl and squirted some of the burnt orange color directly onto their canvases and had each girl use a foam brush to paint the color all over the canvas and onto the sides of the canvas.  It is important to have your painters spread the paint out or you will use a TON of unnecessary paint and it will take forever to dry.

Have each painter paint the background color all over the canvas

Once the girls were finished painting the background color, I had them come inside to have an after-school snack.  I then prepared each girl's paint plate with all of the colors needed to paint their turkey.  *Note - Acrylic paint dries very quickly which is good for quick drying on the canvas, but that also means you can't prepare paint plates too far in advance because the paint dries on the plate making it harder to use.

Paint plates

Before you use chalk to outline the turkey, you will need to make certain that all of the canvases are dry.  I had a couple of girls who had a few spots on their canvas that were wet and used the hair dryer to quickly dry the canvases.


Next, I had the girls use chalk to draw the circle for the body and a smaller circle for the head.  You will need to use one canvas to show your painters where to draw their circles.  I also went around and checked to make sure their circles weren't too large or too small.  The brilliant thing about using chalk is that it wipes right off after the painting dries!

After each painter has draw the turkey's body, have your painters start at one side and draw feathers on the turkey.  They will need help getting started but it was fun seeing their creativity take over!

Use chalk to outline the turkey and feathers

Now the fun begins.  Have your painters paint the turkey's body with brown first using their medium sized brush.  They need to try to get two coats of brown paint on their turkey's body to cover the burnt orange background.  Next, have your painter use their medium sized brush to paint the turkey's feathers.  My group wanted to paint the feathers in a pattern like the sample, but I did give them free reign to paint the feathers however they felt led. 

Please excuse the garage.  :)  A garage overhaul is planned for early spring with much better organization. 

Once all of the feathers were painted I had the girls draw the turkey's legs and feet (yellow), eyes (black), beak (yellow), and waddle (red) with their detail (small) brush.  I also taught them how to roll the brush into a point after you dip it in a small amount of paint to create a finer point.  My painters were only 7 years old but were very attentive, except when they were giggling about this or that.

The last detail to add to the painting is a coordinating color outlining each feather and black outlining the body of the turkey.

The Princess, the Baby and their friends has a really great time.  I won't lie.   It was slightly stressful at times, but I was so blessed to see them interact, have fun learning, and hear their sweet laughs.  I am very glad that I hosted the painting play date.  In fact, the Princess has asked for a Snowman paint next so stay tuned.

Their masterpieces

The Baby's Turkey has a super hero mask!

Mama Jane's Strawberry Jello Salad

Mama Jane's Strawberry Salad

I rarely eat Jello and really don’t like traditional ‘Jello salad’.  I swear, I really am a Southern girl.  

Maybe it’s the wonderful mixture of fruit and maybe it’s the pecan and sour cream filling, but Mama Jane’s Strawberry Salad is a Jello salad that our family loves.  It is, in fact, my mother-in-law, ‘Mimi’s’, favorite holiday dish and I believe she would be seriously disappointed if I didn’t serve it at holiday meals.  You would have to know my mother-in-law, but hardly anything disappoints or upsets her.  

Honey ranks Strawberry Salad as his favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner.  You will again notice that there are no ‘finished’ pictures of this dish.  I think I must have deprived Honey of these beloved family dishes for too long because he helped himself as soon as he got home.  I either need to be quicker with the photos or start putting notes on food that needs to be photographed.  Yeah, I need to be quicker on the photos or hide the dish.  

Even you are like me and normally don’t like Jello salad, I really think you will like this recipe, and if you like Jello salad, you will absolutely LOVE this recipe.  

The Ingredients you will need to make this amazing salad!

My baker in training

What your 'mushy' strawberries will look like

Add all your fruit together

Refrigerate the bottom layer until congealed

Place your sour cream, pecan, powdered sugar mixture on top of your congeal bottom layer in dollops

Spread topping evenly - yes, I didn't wait for the Jello to congeal long enough.  :)

Mama Jane’s Strawberry Salad

2 packages of strawberry Jello

1 cup of boiling water

8-12 oz. package frozen strawberries

1 1/2 cup crushed pineapples with juice

2 mashed bananas

1 15 oz. can mandarin oranges

Filling - 

1 cup sour cream (I always use ‘Light’)

3/4 cup chopped pecans

3 tablespoons confectioner sugar

Place frozen strawberries in a bowl and place in microwave for 1-2 minutes until strawberries are mushy.  Once your strawberries are nice and mushy, cut with a fork and knife until the strawberries are smaller bite sized pieces.  Mix strawberry Jello, cut up strawberries, boiling water, mandarin oranges, pineapple, and banana in large bowl.  Mix well.  Place half of mixture into a 9 x 13 casserole dish.  I have found a glass dish works best for this recipe.  Place dish in the refrigerator and let chill for at least 30 minutes to an hour.  While your Jello congeals, mix topping.  

For topping, mix sour cream, pecans and confectioner sugar.  Once Jello has congealed, add filling in dollops on top of the Jello.  (The dollop approach makes it easier to spread an even layer of the filling without messing up the Jello.)  Pour remaining Jello an fruit mixture on top of the filling.  Cover and refrigerate dish until ready to serve.  Serves 10-12.   

The finished Salad

We don’t have anyone with a nut allergy in our family but I have prepared this dish splitting it into two dishes one with pecans and the other without when we had a guest who had a nut allergy.  All you need to do is divide the filling in half and add a little less than 1/3 cup of pecans to the filling for the ‘with nuts’ dish.  

Stay tuned for more desserts, a champagne punch, and more Thanksgiving family favorites!  Stay warm this week y’all!

Hope

Mama Jane's Strawberry Salad

KIzer Family Sweet Potato Casserole - A Thanksgiving Tradition

Thanksgiving Sweet Potato Casserole

The smell of this fabulous casserole has been a part of my Thanksgiving memories for as long as I can remember.  At one particular Thanksgiving gathering when I was about 4 or 5 year old, I remember seeing my grandmother, 'Dear', pull her sweet potato casserole out of the oven.  I have a distinct memory of thinking, "I want to learn how to make THAT in my oven."

Our family's version of Sweet Potato Casserole has been served at family gatherings for much longer than I have been alive and I am grateful that the recipe has been handed down through the generations.  It is so sinfully good that I like to have it for dessert the few days after Thanksgiving!  

Kizer Family Sweet Potato Casserole

3-4 cups sweet potatoes (4-5 large sweet potatoes) - I tend to lean toward more sweet potatoes when I prepare this dish

1/4 - 1/2 cup butter, melted (Y'all know I tend to cut back on the butter and the base of this recipe works just fine with less butter.  The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup butter.)

2 eggs, beaten

1/3 cup milk (I use skim)

1/3 cup of sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Boil sweet potatoes.  This will take some time.  Once you can easily put a knife into a potato, they are ready to put into your colander.  Let your potatoes cool so that you don't burn your hands trying to take the peeling off of the sweet potatoes.  (Yes, I know from experience.  Sometimes I'm not very patient.)  Mash potatoes in a large bowl using a hand mixer.  Slowly add sugar, butter, eggs, milk and vanilla.  Beat mixture until potatoes are smooth.  Pour potato mixture into greased 9 x 13 dish.  

Topping - 

1/3 cup melted butter (no skimping on this part)

1 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

1 cup chopped pecans

Mix topping ingredients well and sprinkle on top of potatoes.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until bottom is slightly bubbly.  Serves 10-12.  

What you need to make the Sweet Potato Casserole base

The ingredients needed for the topping

After you boil and peel the sweet potatoes beat with hand mixer until potatoes are smooth

Pour Mixture into prepared dish

What your casserole will look like after you add the topping

Kizer Family Sweet Potato Casserole

Did y'all notice that I didn't show the entire finished dish?  That would be because Honey couldn't help himself and took a serving before I could photograph it!  After he took a serving, I threw caution to the wind and got a serving for myself as well.  It was delicious!

We do have a few members of our family who are gluten free.  To make sure everyone can enjoy this dish, we cut the topping recipe in half and only put the topping on half of the casserole.  You could always put marshmallows on half of the recipe and the brown sugar /pecan topping on the other half so everyone can enjoy this wonderful dish!

What recipe has your family 'passed down through generations? I would love to hear.  

I hope y'all enjoy this as much as we do!

Hope