Kentucky Pecan Pie and Why There Will Always Be Canned Cranberry Sauce at Our House

With Thanksgiving just slightly more than a week away, I’m sure you all are feverishly planning your menus.  Thanksgiving staples like turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce are surely on your list.  Each year at Thanksgiving I am reminded of one of the most hilarious food stories I have… (queue flashback sequence and dreamy music).  It was right after I finished my degree.  I had a new house, a new car, and being the budding foodie that I was, I decided that canned cranberry sauce just wasn’t going to be good enough for me anymore.  So after weeks (and I do mean weeks) of searching and scouring, I finally found a recipe that I was excited about.  Now I can’t remember the recipe exactly (I’ve made huge attempts to completely block that from my memory) but I seem to remember combining what seemed to be about 14 expensive ingredients and boiling them for a while.  Then I was to transfer the mixture to a blender to puree the concoction.  Well, here’s where the fun begins.  My kitchen, at that time, had white counters, white cabinets, white walls, and white ceilings ( I know… sounds boring, anyway…), so keep that in mind.  Oh yeah, and we have a white dog.  So you ask, why am I telling you about our dog???  Just keep reading.  So I pour the blazing hot conglomeration of cranberries, orange zest, sugar, etc. into my blender, plop the top on, and flip the switch.  But guess what I forgot to do…  yep!  Forgot to put my hand on the top.  And wouldn’t you know it, that hot liquid whirled around and blew the top right off the blender sending a geyser of hot cranberry goo all over my kitchen in a fashion much like Old Faithful.  Now remember back there when I told you about my kitchen and how white it was, and my dog…  suddenly everything was not so white anymore, including the dog.  Bailey loved it though… she scurried around the kitchen licking up all that she could, bless her heart.  So I bust out the bleach cleaner and ladder and start to scrubbing.  I’m just about finished when Heather comes in and helps me finish ( she has great timing doesn’t she?).  Well, there was some still left in the blender and I had only attempted to puree half of it so I decided to try again with the remaining “sauce”.  I carefully poured the remaining liquid from the pot into the blender and reached down to plug the blender back into the outlet to get started (it got unplugged while cleaning).  But what I failed to realize is that the switch had gotten bumped back into the on position and there was NO LID on the blender.  So once again, a red, gelatinous goo gets blasted all over my kitchen.  Believe it or not, after spending another 45 minutes cleaning, there was enough left that I was actually able to make some real killer cranberry sauce.  Everyone really loved it, and I’m glad… cause they’ll never have it again.  From then on… we’ve been canned all the way.

This super easy, super delicious recipe is actually from my wife’s grandmother.  It’s probably one of the very first things that Heather ever made for me.  It is absolutely delicious and always a favorite on our Thanksgiving table.  Think chocolate pecan pie.  It’s awesome served slightly warmed with  a big ol’ scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Y’all enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 – 9 in. deep dish unbaked pie shell

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Combine chocolate chips, nuts, eggs, sugar, butter, flour, and vanilla and mix well.
3. Pour into pie shell and bake for 1 hour.
4. Allow to cool before slicing.