Headed for my grandmother's tomorrow for a little Thanksgiving action.
I was instructed to bring pies, a pumpkin and a butterscotch. For both crusts I used Cook's Illustrated's new method in which half of the water is replaced with ice cold vodka. I haven't read the article to see why it's supposed to work, but the crust was really easy to work with. I used their Classic Pumpkin Pie recipe, except that I was out of ground ginger so I added half of a Reed's Ginger Beer and cooked the filling a little longer to get out the extra moisture. It seemed to turn out OK.
I used Gale Gand's recipe for the butterscotch pie filling. I followed this one to the letter except that I added a little bourbon instead of scotch. (You'd think this would make it "butterbourbon", but the name has nothing to do with Scotch whiskey. It just happens to be a tasty addition.) The filling came out really tasty, and I don't really even like butterscotch.
I have two different cranberry sauces, a simple cooked sauce and an uncooked relish with orange and a little dab of Grand Marnier. Of course, they'll also have to have the canned kind, because ever since she was a little girl my cousin has always made a big deal about slicing it. She's now 25 or so and has three kids. I think it's healthy to replace old traditions with new ones, like, I don't know, eating stuff that tastes good.
(Seriously, I know a lot of people who say they don't like cranberry sauce, and I always wonder if they've ever had any that wasn't out of a can. It really is night and day, and I made both of the aforementioned sauces start to finish in about ten minutes, which included zesting an orange.)
Last but not least, I threw together some rosemary walnuts--take a bag of shelled walnuts and add melted butter, rosemary (dried is fine), salt, and a little cayenne. Spread out on a cookie sheet and bake for ten minutes. Serve a little bit warm if you can.
