Your Cardiologist Hates This Pumpkin Pie (But You'll Love It)

Some of the bloggers I know are very organized about blogging. They have editorial calendars where they actually think through what they'll be posting and write about particular things when they'll be most relevant. Me, I blog by the seat of my pants. I pretty much write whenever I feel like it and have time (which, unfortunately, is not nearly often enough) - and when I write, it's often about things that have just happened, which means the topics are not always appropriately timed.

This is an example of one such post. Thanksgiving has just passed, we're officially into the Christmas season, and it's a little late to be writing about pumpkin pie. But I just made this one for the third year in a row, which means it's worthy of a blog post. And I have time and energy now, so that's when you're getting it. :)  

This pumpkin pie is not too sweet, a little less pumpkin forward than most, and maybe even toying with the idea of tasting like a buttery pumpkin cheesecake. I'm usually sort of ambivalent about pumpkin pie, but I can't get enough of this one.

Your Cardiologist Hates This Pumpkin Pie (based on a Paula Deen recipe)

Ingredients:

1    8-oz package of cream cheese, softened

2    c canned pumpkin

1    c sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1    egg + 2 egg yolks, slightly beaten

1/2 c half and half

1/4 c (1/2 stick) melted butter

1    tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1   piece pre-made pie crust (or two if you'd like to add cut-outs to the top) - I love Pillsbury's refrigerated dough, which comes 2/box

Whipped cream, for topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Put one piece of pre-made dough into a 9", deep dish pie pan and gently press it to the bottom and sides. Crimp the edges of the crust. Poke holes all over the bottom and sides of the crust with a fork. Cover the inside and the edges of the crust with aluminum foil and cover the bottom with pie weights. Bake for 10 minutes, remove the pie weights and the foil from the bottom (but not the edges!), and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust dries out and is beginning to color.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese with a hand mixer. Add the following ingredients in the order listed and beat until combined after each ingredient:

• pumpkin

• sugar & salt

• eggs

• half and half

• melted butter

• vanilla

• cinnamon

• ginger

Pour the filling into the pie crust, Re-cover the edges of the crust with foil and bake for 50 minutes, or until the center is set (a toothpick will come out clean). If you want to add cut-outs to the top, I usually add them about 25 minutes in - if you do this, you will probably need to bake 5-10 minutes longer since the pie will cool slightly while you're adding the cutouts. Serve with freshly whipped cream.

P.S. If you do cutouts on the top using the second crust, you'll have a lot of crust left over for these Blue Cheese Pie Crust Crackers!

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Easy as Pie (Crust) Blue Cheese Crackers

Usually when I make pies, I like to add little pie crust cutouts on top to fancy it up a little - leaves for Thanksgiving, stars for the Fourth of July, and so on. This works well with my lazy pie-maker crust-making method, which is to buy Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts.  I frequently get compliments on this crust, and it is better than any pie crust I've made myself - and no, I'm not getting paid for this endorsement!  Anyway, since the crusts come two to a box, it typically leaves me with an extra crust to use for cut-outs. But whenever I do this, I end up with a whole lot of extra crust. What to do with it?

I've tried several different things over the years - sprinkling it with cinnamon and sugar, parmesan cheese, garlic salt, all manner of toppings - but none of them were ever really compelling. This Thanksgiving, I happened to have some pungent blue cheese lying around. I cut the crust with cookie cutters, sprinkled a bit of the blue cheese on top, and popped them in the oven on a cookie tray along with my pie. Voila, super tasty blue cheese crackers!

My pie was baking at 350F, so I baked my crackers at the same temperature for about 15 minutes, until they were golden brown. However, if you're doing crackers alone, you might try using this recipe from Pillsbury, which suggests baking at 450F for 6-7 minutes.

These are so addictive and ridiculously easy - they remind me of those delicious cheese straws, but so much easier to make! Enjoy!

What do you do with your leftover pie crusts?

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Baking Therapy - Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Walnut Muffins

I've been spending the week gearing up for a trial in San Antonio, so my blog has been languishing over here, all lonely-like. It's now 2 a.m. and I'm hitting the road in the morning with the trial team...but I can't resist throwing up a quick post about the pumpkin chocolate chip muffins I made tonight as a work break, inspired by my friend Alice, who made some last week and set off this craving.

I started out with this recipe, but as usual, I made quite a few modifications based on the comments (I really, really love the comment feature on AllRecipes - having that community voice of experience is invaluable).

Here's the recipe as I made it. I like the way the muffins turned out - not very sweet at all, and the whole wheat flour and walnuts give them a groundedness that makes me feel like I could eat these for breakfast without sending my blood sugar out of whack. They taste healthy enough to give you that smug, "I'm eating something good for me" feeling, but are still delicious enough that you want to eat them - a very difficult balance to achieve, in my experience. As you can see from the photo, I made these using cupcake wraps, but I'd strongly recommend greasing the muffin tins and not using wraps; for some reason, they stuck to the paper like crazy. (EDIT: OK, it turns out that I was just eating them while they were too hot. They came off the paper like a charm the next day!)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Walnut Muffins

INGREDIENTS
* 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
* 1 cup sugar (original recipe called for 2 cups; if you like sweeter muffins, go to town)
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 4 eggs
* 1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
* 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
* 1/4 cup vegetable oil
* 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
* 1 cup walnuts

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine the first eight ingredients (all the dry ingredients).
3. In another bowl, combine egg, pumpkin, applesauce and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
4. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.
5. Fill greased muffin tins or cupcake wraps two-thirds full with batter. Bake at 400 degrees F for 18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Makes about two dozen muffins.

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