Pecan Pie

I am sometimes jealous of people who get to celebrate Thanksgiving. Because it is something that I have not grown up celebrating, I miss all those Indian festivals we grew up celebrating. But, I am slowly coming to terms to celebrate what I have here to celebrate. But, I love how people around me get so busy when Thanksgiving is approaching. They are waiting for the day and prepping fully for it. There is happy happy atmosphere all over the place and I know those who have their family members, get to spend good time with them.

Soon, I have to start following this tradition with my vegetarian thanksgiving to get in the mood of holidays. While we enjoy taking road trips or spend time buying all the sale stuff online during thanksgiving holidays, it is also time to enjoy the food that American’s make for thanksgiving. If I am vegetarian so what, we can enjoy the dessert if not turkey. Because life is too Short not to enjoy the dessert. So this year I thought I would make a pecan pie , got a reason to get in the mood of Thanksgiving. So, here’s my easy delicious Pecan Pie recipe.

Ingredients:

Pie Crust

1 1/4 cup All purpose Flour

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

10 Tablespoons butter

Few Tablespoons Ice cold water

For the Filling:

1/2  Cup Maple Syrup

1/2 Cup Corn Syrup

1 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Tablespoon Corn Starch

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

3 eggs

1/2 Cup Butter

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence

2 cups Pecans

1/2 cup Cranberries (optional)

Method:

For the Pie crust – Take Flour, salt , and cut the butter into the flour and make pea sized crumbs, add few drops of water until everything comes together and forms dough. You have to work quickly, before the butter starts melting and transfer the dough to plastic wrap or parchment paper and cover it and leave it in refrigerator until ready to use it. We can make pie crust in advance and store it. It stays really well in the fridge and also saves lot of time.

For the Filling – Take the corn syrup , maple syrup sugar, salt, Corn starch and mix well. Add the eggs one by one and keep whisking and mixing. Add the melted butter and vanilla essence into this mixture and again mix it all well to combine. Add the cranberries also.

Assemble the pie – Pre heat the oven at 350 F and remove the pie dough from the fridge and roll it out with into 9 inch round. Use dry flour to roll out the dough. Once it is rolled out , place it in the pie pan or tart pan and set it nicely. Remove the excess dough. You can use it some other recipe or later on for another pie. I had extra Pie filling , so I made hand pies with the extra dough and extra filling.

Fill the pie crust with the filling that we just made. Add half of the roughly chopped pecans. Reserve half of the pecans for garnish. Once all the filling is added. Place whole pecans in circle or any other design of your choice.

Place the pie pan in the preheated oven and bake it till it looks done for about 20-30 minutes. For handpies, the time would vary. It usually takes not more than 15 minutes for handpies. So watch out for them before you burn them.

Remove the pie and place it on a cooling rack and then serve it warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and some coffee. Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

What are you thankful this year? I am Thankful for the new job.  Please share it with me. I would really love to know what are you all thankful for.