Thanksgiving Recipe Blog Hop 2010

Welcome to the Hop...

this is the last stop in the hop...you made it!
if you've been 'hopping' then hopefully you just came from Jamie at Creating Home
and just enjoy browsing all the wonderful recipes that everyone posted for you

if you are just starting the Hop, then go to the beginning with Robin at Creative 2x Mom and follow the blogs thru, they will bring you back to me...

this is my very first blog hop and I am so excited to be sharing it with all of these wonderful ladies..

if you have NO idea what I'm talking about...just trust me...

grab a cup of coffee (or tea) and start hopping

I am actually sharing 2 recipes with you...
first it's my mom's sweet potato recipe...

and I totally cheated on my own blog hop and I'm using my Mom's recipe for Sweet Potatoes...and actually I think she uses Yams but we still call it sweet potatoes.... (you say potato we say yam)...

this is a tried and true recipe that isn't even written down anymore, but right out of memory (you know those are the good ones!)...but I did recently see a very similar recipe that called for pears rather than apples...since we've never tried that I didn't want to add it/change it in the recipe, but I wanted to give you guys the option....sort of on a pear theme today in my recipes!

When I asked her the name of the dish she told me that she got it from a long time family friend...named Linda (also my mom's name...and 20% of the ladies from that generation!) so it's appropriately called

Linda's Sweet Potato Recipe

2 large cans Yam/sweet potato

2 red apples (I use either Fugi, Gala or  Braeburn-my mom)  (maybe pears?)

½ cup brown sugar      

½ cup chopped walnuts  

     (or pecans...my suggestion not moms, my family will not eat walnuts but will eat pecans...such snobs!)

¼ cup butter

Marshmallows

Wash core and thinly slice apples into large casserole dish with yams.  Add brown sugar and walnuts. Gently fold together so that everything is evenly mixed and dot top with butter.  Bake for 25-30 min or until apples are done. Put marshmallows on top as thickly as you prefer and put under broiler until golden.

You can add more nuts if you really like them and it’s still yummy if you don’t put marshmallows on top although you might want to add a little more brown sugar. I actually prefer it without marshmallows, but to my husband aka my father, it’s not a sweet potato casserole unless it has golden marshmallows melted on top! (my mom's notes)

okay now my REAL recipe is for a pear tart...

and -confession- I've never made or had this for Thanksgiving...

but I feel like pears get the short end of the stick during this season...
it's their season too...
why do the apples and pumpkins outshine the pear...
maybe I'm just more supportive to pears since I grew up in pear town...
aka the Rouge Valley (Southern Oregon)...

or maybe it's because I have my kitchen decorated in pears...

whatever it is...I feel we need to give the pear it's rightful place at our Thanksgiving tables this year....

just to clarify...I HAVE made this recipe, just not for Thanksgiving!

Brown Butter Pear Tart

Browned Butter Pastry Recipe (follows)

1/4 cup sugar

4 tsp flour

1/4 tsp ground ginger (more or less depending on your taste...)

     or substitute nutmeg and cloves if your family doesn't 'do' ginger
4 cups sliced & peeled pears
1 Tbp lemon juice
1 Tbp sliced almonds or pecans (optional)
milk/cream
sugar
1.  Prepare browned butter pastry (recipe follows), set aside.  Cover a cookie sheet with foil, sprinkle lightly with flour.  Roll out pasty* into a 13-inch circle and place on foil.
2.  In large bowl stir together sugar, flour, and ginger.  Add pears and lemon juice; toss gently until coated.  Mound pear mixture in center of pastry, leaving a 2-inch border.  Fold border up over pears.  Sprinkle center with nuts (optional).  Lightly brush pastry with milk/cream and dust with sugar.
3.  Bake in a 375 oven for 35-40 minutes or until crust is goldeny brown (the color will be different than a 'normal' pie crust with the browned butter pastry) and filling is bubbly.  If necessary, cover edges of pastry with foil for the last 5-10 minutes to prevent overbrowning (aka burning!).
4.  Cool 30 minutes on the baking sheet.  Serve warm (you can microwave slices to re-heat them) with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream!

Browned Butter Pastry
1/4 cup butter
1 1/4 cup flour (wheat flour is very yummy with this)
1 Tbp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4-5 Tbp cold water


1.  In a small saucepan melt butter over medium heat until butter turns the color of light brown sugar (slightly hard to tell because the butter will be frothy), stirring constantly.  

Cover and chill browned butter until solid, about 1 1/2 hrs (you can do this a day ahead).
*2.  In medium bowl stir together flour, salt and sugar.  Using pasty blender cut browned butter into flour mixture until it resembles pea-sized crumbs or smaller.  You can work your flour/butter mixture as long as you want...pastry gets tough once you add the water...but at this stage it's still forgivable...
3.  Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour your cold water (the colder the better) and mix water into flour using a fork, work quickly, until dough forms a ball (you may need to use your hands).  Place pastry onto lightly flour surface, use your hands flatten out ball, coating it with flour on both sides.  Roll dough into a 13 inch circle with a floured rolling pin.

* If I can teach you anything about baking it is this....

handle pastry as little as possible, the more you handle it the tougher it will be, so opt for taste over beauty, if it's falling apart try to patch the pastry with extra pieces rather than starting the whole thing over and re-rolling it!!!  trust me on this...I have served many pies, and once it's cut and served how it looked gets WAY over shadowed by how it tasted!

Thanks everyone for joining us on my first every blog hop!  Hope you had fun visiting all the ladies on our Thanksgiving Recipe Blog Hop 2010!

just a re-cap here was the hopping order...

Robin from Creative 2x Mom http://creative2xmom.blogspot.com/ 
Kristin from Sweetheart Moments  http://www.mysweetheartmoments.com/ 
Krista from ~LopezFamily~ http://kristasuz.blogspot.com/ 
Becky of From Rookie to Rockstar http://rookietorockstar.blogspot.com/ 
Lisa from Juella Designs the Blog http://www.lisaski.typepad.com/ 
Jamie from Creating Home http://www.jamieschulz.blogspot.com/ 
and then ME...Kiera (that's me) from ChambersMade http://chambersmade.blogspot.com/ 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, have a safe and thankful day!