Just about time for pecan pie again!

[Blackwater]

Here in Ga, we have lots of pecan trees. As a kid, I used to pick them up to take to market to sell for "Christmas money." We always did pretty well. Had Stewarts (generally the best) a Van Deemer, and some seedlings. The seedlings are great, but harder to shell, and impossible to get halves out of for eating whole, or baking with some brown sugar or what have you.

But Mom always made what I though were the best pecan pies! And she taught me how to make them before she passed. And it's a very simple recipe:

1 1/2 cups pecans, halves or however you want them
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup light Karo syrup
4 eggs beaten well
1 tsp real vanilla extract

Mix that together and pour into two deep dish pie shells, bake for @ 45 min. at (IIRC) 325 degrees, and just enjoy the aroma as they bake. Sure makes a house smell like Christmas or other holliday!

This recipe can be varied any way you want, and flavorings, like Tia Maria, extra vanilla, or whatever turns you on or you have a hankerin' for and goes with the flavors above (Lot'a room there!), and you can have your own "secret recipe" that folks will rave about for years and years. And I DARE ya' to take a bite without smiling!

Any other favoite or "secret" recipes? It's OK if ya' gotta' kill us after revealing it. A good piece of pecan pie is WORTH it!

[Landy]

Wow, I love pecan pies; but thought that they would be a bit difficult to make.

Your Mom's recipe is going to push me to give it a try -- may have to buy the crusts, though.

[William Yanda]

"And I DARE ya' to take a bite without smiling!"

Made me smile to read the recipe.

[JWT]

My favorite. My wife used to make pecan pies with a shot of Eagle Rare bourbon in it. Heaven.

My son is allergic to tree nuts, so for safety we don't have them in the house anymore.

[Reverend Al]

Sounds like a simple but very tasty recipe. I copied it and will definitely try it out! Thanks!

[Lead pot]

I think I might have made a mistake by stopping here reading all this fine cooking. Since last winter I lost 30# and put 7# back on since Sept after stopping here. I will take it back off after New Years eve.......Maybe......Kurt

[MaryB]

I miss the guy who sold large flat rate boxes of pecans here one year... those were tasty into Feb!

[frankenfab]

Add some chocolate chips to that recipe. I have been hooked on it since I tried Emeril Lagasse's recipe years ago.

[DougGuy]

We indulge in pecan pies too. My GF has a really good crust recipe that uses butter and not Crisco which is much healthier so we use this. I can probably post the recipe for it as an edit to this post.

I do like chocolate in the pie too, our recipe of late has been one of the bourbon chocolate pecan pies that we got off the net.

Chefs and old time family recipes in Louisiana call for Steen's Pure Cane Syrup and not karo, so I ordered some on ebay for this season. I also dearly love good Sorghum syrup, that stuff has a unique flavor that tastes lightly of molasses, but more fruity and flowery tasting, and it is packed with nutrients. Our recipe this year will be divided between Steen's and Muddy Pond Sorghum for the liquid sugars. I think I will lightly toast the chopped pecans, enough to bring out just a little of that parched pecan flavor.

For chocolate I am tempted to go half and half Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips, and chopped up 86% cacao bar.

I made some coconut cookies with hazlenuts, they were raw nuts so I chopped and roasted them before making the cookies and I got a little distracted and the edges of them got a little too well toasted but man, the flavor they added to the cookies was wonderful and you could taste that toasted nuts taste all the way through the cookies so I am going to do this to the pecans, just not quite as toasted....

Here in Ga, we have lots of pecan trees. As a kid, I used to pick them up to take to market to sell for "Christmas money." We always did pretty well. Had Stewarts (generally the best) a Van Deemer, and some seedlings.

As a kid growing up in Ocean Springs, MS we had 110 pecan trees in our back yard. We had Stewarts, Success (the two best tasting and best producing ones) we had a Mahan tree that made really long nuts, and some others. All our old trees are gone now, property was developed so what was left after Camille and Katrina fell to the bulldozer. Our trees were part of a huge orchard that stretched for miles inland, must have been thousands of trees. I am thinking this was a commercial venture that dated back to the late 1800s or early 1900s or some time after the Civil War, I would love to know the history behind this huge pecan orchard. They also had persimmon trees planted that may have been a commercial venture as well, the persimmons were of a cultivar of Hachiya persimmons that produced HUGE fruit, I have never seen persimmons this big anywhere else or even seen pictures of them. I posted in an earlier thread about these. Several friends that still live in my home town have these exact Hachiya varieties on their property and they all seem to have come from the same grafted stocks.

I predict that development will pretty much make Mississippi Coast pecans totally non existent for the retail market, what trees of these original orchards that do survive will be scattered and in people's back yards and won't be harvested for resale like our pecans were in the 1950s. and 1960s.



Seeing this pic reminded me of a good story.. See those clumps of weeds and tall grass around the base of the trees? My dad had an old tomcat called Whitefoot, he was an outdoor cat that lived in the garage and would "grace you with his prescence" in exchange for a back scratch now and then. Whitefoot was smart. He would follow the bush hog when we cut this field, and he would hunt the field mice and rats that lived in the tall grass. He was no dummy. He would kill the rats and mice, and would jump on a snake in a heartbeat and kill them too.

Once while I was going around trimming the tall grass left at the base of the trees by the bush hog, he came out there and stationed himself intently at my side, me swinging a yoyo and a kaiser blade just inches from his head. He never flinched or moved, he would sit in one spot and wait until I got all the way around the tree and sure enough any vermin hiding in the grass would be driven out and he would pounce on them. I seen him with 2-3 mice in his mouth, and still catching them with his claws. One hell of a good hunter, and I never seen another cat that would hunt with a human, that knew enough to sit and wait and watch for the prey to be flushed out into the open. Pretty cool old cat. I'm sure he's gone across the rainbow bridge now but I can't look at that picture and not remember him hunting while I whacked grass and weeds..

[DougGuy]

Okay, here is the no shortening pie crust my GF makes. It is MUCH healthier than using shortening, since shortening is 100% trans fats. Nasty stuff to put in your body.

This recipe can be cut in half, which she normally does, and it will make two thin crusts or one deep dish crust.



Butter Pie Crust

Bon Appétit November 2006


Yield: Makes 2 nine-inch deep-dish crusts
Ingredients

• 
  
  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 6 tablespoons (about) ice water

Preparation

• 
  
  • Mix flour, sugar, and salt in processor. Add butter; pulse until coarse meal forms. Gradually blend in enough ice water to form moist clumps. Gather dough into ball; divide in half. Form dough into 2 balls; flatten into disks. Wrap each in plastic; chill 2 hours or overnight.

[LIMPINGJ]

That about he recipe I use except I go a half cup lard and a half cup butter. We had a cat that would follow me when I hunted with my Sheridan.

[Boaz]

We indulge in pecan pies too. My GF has a really good crust recipe that uses butter and not Crisco which is much healthier so we use this. I can probably post the recipe for it as an edit to this post.

I do like chocolate in the pie too, our recipe of late has been one of the bourbon chocolate pecan pies that we got off the net.

Chefs and old time family recipes in Louisiana call for Steen's Pure Cane Syrup and not karo, so I ordered some on ebay for this season. I also dearly love good Sorghum syrup, that stuff has a unique flavor that tastes lightly of molasses, but more fruity and flowery tasting, and it is packed with nutrients. Our recipe this year will be divided between Steen's and Muddy Pond Sorghum for the liquid sugars. I think I will lightly toast the chopped pecans, enough to bring out just a little of that parched pecan flavor.

For chocolate I am tempted to go half and half Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips, and chopped up 86% cacao bar.

I made some coconut cookies with hazlenuts, they were raw nuts so I chopped and roasted them before making the cookies and I got a little distracted and the edges of them got a little too well toasted but man, the flavor they added to the cookies was wonderful and you could taste that toasted nuts taste all the way through the cookies so I am going to do this to the pecans, just not quite as toasted....



As a kid growing up in Ocean Springs, MS we had 110 pecan trees in our back yard. We had Stewarts, Success (the two best tasting and best producing ones) we had a Mahan tree that made really long nuts, and some others. All our old trees are gone now, property was developed so what was left after Camille and Katrina fell to the bulldozer. Our trees were part of a huge orchard that stretched for miles inland, must have been thousands of trees. I am thinking this was a commercial venture that dated back to the late 1800s or early 1900s or some time after the Civil War, I would love to know the history behind this huge pecan orchard. They also had persimmon trees planted that may have been a commercial venture as well, the persimmons were of a cultivar of Hachiya persimmons that produced HUGE fruit, I have never seen persimmons this big anywhere else or even seen pictures of them. I posted in an earlier thread about these. Several friends that still live in my home town have these exact Hachiya varieties on their property and they all seem to have come from the same grafted stocks.

I predict that development will pretty much make Mississippi Coast pecans totally non existent for the retail market, what trees of these original orchards that do survive will be scattered and in people's back yards and won't be harvested for resale like our pecans were in the 1950s. and 1960s.



Seeing this pic reminded me of a good story.. See those clumps of weeds and tall grass around the base of the trees? My dad had an old tomcat called Whitefoot, he was an outdoor cat that lived in the garage and would "grace you with his prescence" in exchange for a back scratch now and then. Whitefoot was smart. He would follow the bush hog when we cut this field, and he would hunt the field mice and rats that lived in the tall grass. He was no dummy. He would kill the rats and mice, and would jump on a snake in a heartbeat and kill them too.

Once while I was going around trimming the tall grass left at the base of the trees by the bush hog, he came out there and stationed himself intently at my side, me swinging a yoyo and a kaiser blade just inches from his head. He never flinched or moved, he would sit in one spot and wait until I got all the way around the tree and sure enough any vermin hiding in the grass would be driven out and he would pounce on them. I seen him with 2-3 mice in his mouth, and still catching them with his claws. One hell of a good hunter, and I never seen another cat that would hunt with a human, that knew enough to sit and wait and watch for the prey to be flushed out into the open. Pretty cool old cat. I'm sure he's gone across the rainbow bridge now but I can't look at that picture and not remember him hunting while I whacked grass and weeds..

Thank you for the story !

[shtur]

Pecan Pie is my favorite meal.

[Freightman]

Still have 100=# pecans from last year, not suppose to eat nuts diverticulitis or something like that Dr said but what does he know

[DLCTEX]

We had a bumper crop of pecans last year and I brought buckets full home. If you store in a freezer the keep for more than a year. My wife makes the best pecan pie and that's what I have instead of birthday cake. We bundled sorghum for cattle feed when I was a kid and the bundles were stood on end in the field in "shocks" until dry and then brought in to a stack lot. When we moved the shocks there were rats and mice galore and our German Shepard would catch them by the mouthful. Sometimes a rat would bite his tongue and cause vigorous head shaking to dislodge it.

[DLCTEX]

We are having another good year for pecans with our not having a frost yet.
We have a recipe for lemon pecan pie that is also great if anyone is interested I can post it.

[Wayne Smith]

Still have 100=# pecans from last year, not suppose to eat nuts diverticulitis or something like that Dr said but what does he know

As long as you chew the nuts thoroughly they are no problem. It is the chunks that will not digest that are a problem for us with diverticulitis. No apple peel, no tomato peel, no whole kernel corn (the clear sheath is not digestible), be very careful with seeds of all kinds and I avoid sunflower seeds and poppy seed buns. Raspberries and blackberries need to be seeded as well.

I eat a lot of nuts, enjoy them and cracking them. I have not had a problem with them. I did until I realized that the berry seeds caused the problems I was having.

[Blackwater]

Wow! So many great "customizations" and variations in the recipes! Only BAD thing is I'll never get to try them ALL! Hurricane Matthew hit my locale hard enough to take down quite a few of our pecan trees. Various orchards got hit in varying degrees, but all lost at least some trees. As a kid, I'd laze out in the yard sometimes, and if hungry, I'd just start picking up pecans and eating them. Sometimes, I ate enough that it DID "spoil my supper," just like Mom warned me it would! But I ate enough back then that I don't think Mom ever noticed it too much? Just wish I could still eat like that!

[DougGuy]

There are alternatives to Karo that aren't corn syrup. Steen's is a Louisiana staple for over 100 years, it is a dark pure cane syrup with nothing cooked out, nothing added in, no preservatives, it is sugar can juice cooked to syrup in open kettles. It has it own taste, and will be replacing the Karo syrup in our bourbon chocolate pecan pie recipe this year. I just got a 25oz. can in the mail today.. I still plan on using some Sorghum syrup along with the Steen's pure cane syrup because the sorghum adds a unique flavor, almost flowery in nature.



Here is another small batch, pure cane syrup made in Louisiana that ought to be really good too:





A Smaller-Batch Answer to Steen's Cane Syrup By Jessica MischnerNovember 18, 2015

In Youngsville, Louisiana, just outside of Lafayette, Charles Poirier makes cane syrup the old-fashioned way—by hand and very, very slowly.

(Photos courtesy of Poirier’s)
First, he grows an acre-and-a-half of sugar cane on his property—seven varieties, including five nearly lost and forgotten heirlooms. Then, between late-September and early-December, when the cane is ready for harvesting, he cuts it down with a cane knife and strips the leaves until only the stalks remain. Those he runs through a 109-year-old mill, which is powered by an 84-year-old engine, both of which Poirier personally restored. He boils the cane into syrup in his sugarhouse, a 384-square-foot structure located in his backyard. Of course, he built the sugarhouse, as well as the new bottling and storage space he added this year to increase output—there’s no part of this process he does not personally oversee.

“My great-great-grandfather used to make cane syrup, so I figured making my own would be a nice tribute to my family. Plus, I love old machinery,” says Poirier, who began selling his syrup commercially three years ago. “In this business, you’re pretty much on your own, though. It’s not like you can go to school for it.”

It’s hard work to be sure, but Poirier’s loyal and growing following—chefs, food bloggers, and people lucky enough to have had a taste—swear by the amber-colored syrup’s earthy, caramel-like sweetness. Supplies are limited—Poirier expects to bottle 11 or 12 batches, or about 250 gallons, of syrup this season—so order a bottle while you can. Then, drizzle the syrup on everything from cornbread and pancakes to roast duck and aged cheese.

Or, take it like Poirier does, with a shot of whiskey. “A friend of mine sent me a text that a group of chefs were gathered in New Orleans and they were passing around a bottle of Jameson and a bottle of my syrup, chasing one with the other,” Poirier says. “That’s how I found out about it. And I have to say, they’re pretty good together.”
For more info, go to facebook.com/PoiriersCaneSyrup. Call 337-254-8758 for orders and inquiries.

[MaryB]

Grandpa always grew a small patch of sorghum in a wet spot in the field. To soft to get the tractor in so we did everything by hand. Sorghum loved it and grandma always boiled it down for pancake syrup...flavor from my childhood I haven't had in ages! Especially loved when she shaved down some ice and then drizzled syrup over it... simple treat for the grand kids!