when my awesome cousin, the appreciator, asked me for a recipe/drink post for her blog, i said “sure! sounds like fun.”
cousin lori with her daughter linds & aunt annette
It then took me about two seconds to realize there was one small problem – i don’t cook. i weighed my options:
my “plan a” was to write about the one “recipe” i do have. marinate salmon in a combination of yoshida’s gourmet sauce and brown sugar. then bake it. ok, so plan a is a little short and incomplete, so i thought of a plan b.
appropriately, my “plan b” was beer.
i’ve tried lots of different beers over the years. as i started to put together my list of favorite/interesting beers – rogue dead guy ale, lost coast great white, walkabout workers pale ale . . . i realized that most of these beers are impossible to find if you don’t live in northern california or southern oregon. so, about all i have to offer on the subject of beers is this – explore the local microbrews wherever your travels take you. they won’t all be winners but it’s sure a lot of fun exploring the local varieties.
so, on to “plan c” . . . call my mom.
when i picked up the phone to call my mom, i suddenly felt nine years old again. of course my mom can have three dozen cookies ready by tomorrow for the school bake sale. as i talked with my mom about what to write, we took a journey through years of stories related to the kitchen. a couple of the stories may explain why i don’t cook . . . there was the crème de menthe display i destroyed with a grocery cart after weeks of begging my mom to let me “drive” the cart (my driving privileges were revoked for months after that little incident). there was also the brand new mixer i destroyed by getting the spatula caught in the beaters. as my mom shared her stories of the kitchen, i realized how many great memories were created in our family kitchen. it almost makes me want to start cooking . . .
so no surprise, the recipe we selected comes with a story.
hawaiian pumpkin pie was always a holiday family favorite. my brother, jim, especially loves this dessert, so when he was invited to aunt joan and uncle jim’s house (yep, also home of the appreciator) for thanksgiving dinner years and years ago, he offered to bring hawaiian pumpkin pie. the recipe truly is a great recipe – if you remember to add all the ingredients. that thanksgiving, jim forgot one ingredient – the sugar. aunt joan said, as the appreciator’s family sat eating dessert, they were exchanging glances as if to say “does your piece taste as bad as mine?” afraid of hurting jim’s feelings, they never said a word and waited until jim had left to compare notes on what went wrong with the pie. so here it is . . . just don’t forget the sugar.
hawaiian pumpkin pie
1 baked 9″ crumb crust
1 pt. vanilla ice cream
1 c. canned pumpkin
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. heavy cream, whipped
1/2 chopped pecans
spread slightly softened ice cream on bottom of cool pie shell. put in the freezer.
combine pumpkin, sugar, spices and salt. fold in whipped cream. spread over ice cream in pie shell. sprinkle with pecans. put in the freezer. remove from freezer a few minutes before serving. can be frozen up to one month.
crumb crust:
combine 1 1/2 c. graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 c. sugar and 1/4 melted butter or margarine. Press into a 9″ pie pan. bake at 375ºF for 8 minutes. cool.
