Thanksgiving Pies And Other Holiday Goodies

The following are recipes I found in My Mothers "holiday recipe box"

To my Mother the annual apple harvest meant the start of holiday cooking. She would cook all these wonderful goodies and put them in the freezer for the holidays. These are just a few of her favorite recipes. I treasure her recipes and will hand them down to my daughter. I must confess I did not inherit my mothers talent for baking pies. I tried over and over but was never succesful. after many tries to make a decent pies I gave up. I usually purchase pies from the bakery.

Basic Pie Crust
Makes 2 8 or 9 inch pie crusts
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp of salt
¾ cup of shortening
In a medium bowl with a fork stir the flour and salt
With a pastry blender cut the shortening into the flour until it is coarse crumbs
Sprinkle 5-8 tbsp of cold water one at a time mixing lightly with a fork after each addition until pastry is moist enough to hold together. Shape pastry into a ball. For a 2 crust pie divide pastry into 2 pieces one slightly larger than the other. Take the larger piece and roll it out on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pinto about 1/8” thick and about 2” larger than the pie plate all around. Carefully transfer to the pie plate. Roll out the ball for the top of the pie the same way. Bake as directed in pie recipe.
The above is my Mothers basic pie crust. As far as I know she used it for most of her pies. Following are her favorite recipes for Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie


Addie's Apple Pie

Pie crust as above.

2/3 to ¾ cup of sugar, ½ of this can be brown sugar if desired

2 tbsp of all purpose flour

½ tsp of cinnamon

¼ tsp of nutmeg

½ tsp of grated lemon peel

1 to 2 tsp of lemon juice

6 to 7 cups of peeled and cored apples

6 pats of butter or margarine

Preheat oven to 425F

Place bottom pie crust in pie plate. Put ½ the apples in the piecrust, sprinkle with sugar mixture. Place in the rest of the apples and sprinkle with the rest of the sugar mixture. Dot the top with butter or margarine pats. Put on top of pie crust and bake 40 to 50 minutes.

Mom’s Pumpkin or Squash Pie

Unbaked 9” pie shell

1 cup of sugar

½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp allspice

½ tsp ground clove

1 ½ cups of pumpkin. This can be canned or fresh made from pumpkin

Or use fresh or frozen, thawed squash

1 2/3 cup of evaporated milk, undiluted

2 eggs well beaten

Refrigerate the pie shell for at least 1 hour before use. Heat oven to 425F. Combine sugar, salt and spices. Add pumpkin, milk and eggs and beat until smooth. Pour into pie shell and bake at 425F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F and continue baking for 35 minutes or until custard is set. Cool

After she had an ample supply of apple and pumpkin and squash pies safely in the freezer she would work on her breads. Following are her favorites. The recipes for Date Nut Bread and Cranberry Walnut Bread are my favorite ones. These recipes represent my Mothers unique ideas to me. Both of these recipes are from her favorite cookbook. She changed the amounts of every ingredient to suit her own taste. That was my Mother always trying to make a good thing better.

According to Addie no holiday menu is complete without at least one bread. Here are a few of her favorites.

Date Nut Bread

1 ½ cup of chopped walnuts

2 cups of cut up pitted dates

3 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

6 tablespoons of shortening

1 ½ cups of boiling water

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups sugar

3 cups of sifted all purpose flour

With a fork mix walnuts, dates, soda and salt. Add shortening and water and let stand for 20 minutes. Start heating oven to 350F Grease 2 9”x 5”x 3” loaf pans. With a fork beat eggs then beat in vanilla, sugar and flour. Mix in date mixture until just blended. Turn into pans. Bake for 1 hour 5 minutes or until cake tester inserted into center of loaf comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes then remove from pans to wire rack to finish cooling. Wrap and store. This bread freezes well.

Cranberry Walnut Bread

4 cups of sifted all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp salt

1 ½ cups of sugar

2 eggs

2/3 cup of orange juice

2 tsp of grated orange rind

6 tablespoons of white vinegar plus enough water to make 1 1/3 cups

½ cup of melted shortening

2 cups halved of coarsely chopped cranberries

2 cups of chopped walnuts

Start heating oven to 350F. Grease a 9”x 5”x 3” loaf pan. In a mixing bowl, sift flour, soda, salt and sugar. With a fork beat egg and stir in orange juice and rind, vinegar-water mixture and melted shortening. Add all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until flour is moistened. Add cranberries and walnuts and turn into a baking pan. Bake for 60 - 70 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes then remove to racks to finish cooling.

This next recipe, Suet Pudding is an old family favorite handed down from my Grandmother. It is actually a steamed bread. My mother would make up several batches of this and add it to the goodies in the freezer.

Grammie Berry’s Suet Pudding

2 ½ cups of flour

1 tsp soda

½ tsp salt

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp cinnamon

1 cup raisins

1 cup of milk

1 cup of suet, chopped small

1 cup of molasses

Sift flour, soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon together. Add raisins and suet. Mix milk and molasses add the flour mixture add raisins and suet and mix well. Divide into 2-1 pound coffee cans cover with plastic. Steam on top of stove for 3 hours in a covered pan over low heat. Check water level often keeping about 2 inches of water in the pan at al times. Cool, remove from cans wrap well and freeze.

When you thaw the Suet Pudding for serving mix the following sauce for a topping.

Suet Pudding Egg Sauce

Cream ½ cup of butter or margarine with 1 ½ cups of sugar. Add 1 egg and beat well. Add 1 or 2 tbsp of boiling water and ½ tsp of vanilla. Heat before serving.

Christmas in our home was always a fun time filled with family and friends. Of course there was a never ending stream of food for the holidays. The following recipes will be some of those goodies that we snacked on endlessly from Thanksgiving until New Years.

I think my Mother stole the following recipe from the jar of Marshmallow Fluff.

Oh So Good Fudge

2 ½ cups of sugar
½ stick of butter or margarine
¾ cup of evaporated milk
1- 7 ½ oz jar of Marshmallow Fluff
¾ tsp of vanilla
1 12 oz package of chocolate chips
½ cup of chopped nuts
Grease a 9”square baking pan and set aside. In a large saucepan combine the first 5 ingredients. Stir over low heat until blended. Stir over low heat to a full rolling boil being careful not to mistake escaping air bubbles for boiling. Boil slowly, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and chocolate chips until chips are melted. Add nuts and turn into greased pan and cool. Makes 2 ½ lbs.
Butterscotch or peanut butter chips can be substituted for a change of pace.

Another holiday favorite was Scotcheroos. This is a sinfully delicious treat for the real chocolate and peanut butter lover.

Scotcheroos
6 cups of Rice Krispies
1 cup of light Karo syrup
1 cup of peanut butter
½ cup of sugar
12 0z pkg of chocolate chips
12 oz pkg of butterscotch chips
Melt the Karo and sugar together until sugar dissolves. Stir in the peanut butter while still over the heat. Add the Rice Krispies. Pour and press the mixture into a 13”x9” buttered pan Melt the chocolate and butterscotch chips in a saucepan then spread over the Rice Krispies mixture. Chill and cut into squares.

Somewhere along the way my Mother came across a recipe which she put on the table one Christmas day. Everyone loved it and it is still used in my home today. One of the best things about this recipe is that you can change the flavors and fruits to suit your tastes. You can also use low fat or light ingredients. I always found it fun to use my imagination and change the flavors a lot.


Moms Favorite Fun Fruit Salad

1 16 oz container of cottage cheese
1 12 0z container of Kool Whip
1- 6 oz pkg of jello any flavor
1 16 oz can of fruit, (I usually use a can of tropical fruits)
Mix all ingredients in a bowl and chill. This can also be put into a mold. I have added food color to this and placed it on a tray shaped as a Christmas tree or a heart or something to match the occasion.

Many years have passed since those wonderful simple days of my childhood. As a working woman I do things much different from my mother. I rely on my crock pot a lot to cook while I am at work. It is so easy to put a roast in the crock pot and go about my day. When I come home I just make salad or vegetables to serve with it. In my spare time I enjoy cooking and can often be found in the kitchen cooking something.