Pie!

For thanksgiving, I got to make the pie. In years past, if a holiday meal was at my house, I did the lion's share of the cooking, got stressed out and was generally a cranky little elf. But this year it really was a family effort. My dad smoked a huge turkey (delish)! My mom-in-law made her famous dressing, and my sister in law made the mashed potatoes, with gravy from her husband's restaurant. So that left me with dessert and extras. Excellent. Now, my Nana always said there has to be something green on the table, so I roasted asparagus. And as there were two Frenchies there...there had to be a cheese platter. :-)

But onto dessert! The first pie was a Cheesecake-Swirled Pumpkin Pie. (Recipe by Libby's: here)
It was the favorite of the two Meyers' boys, made extra-pretty by crust stencils that Cindy (my mom-in-law) gave me. And the other pie, though not as pretty, was really fantastic. A Chocolate-Chip Pecan Pie.
I used dark brown sugar and golden syrup with this recipe. I think I probably added 1-1/2 cup each of pecans and chocolate chips. The "goo" part was rather thick, which I prefer. I can't stand gloppy pecan filling oozing out my pie...*shudder*. I used to hate pecan pie because of that. But there's nothing to hate in this pie. Pecans + chocolate + crust = all things Southern and tasty. Dad ate two pieces. Casey says he wishes it was more oozy and gloppy, and if possible would like a direct IV-drip of gloppy pecan-pie filling. There's no accounting for taste.We just put up the Christmas tree and other decorations, and we've got tickets to see the Nutcracker next weekend...so Christmas is in the air!