PECAN PIE.

Upon request, along with the fact that we want this to be a regular feature on the blog, I thought I would share a recipe.  We can call it "Hannah's First Thanksgiving Pecan Pie."

INGREDIENTS: The Crust

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (plus some extra for rolling out the dough)

1 cup salted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (it helps if it is REALLY COLD)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp honey

8 tbsp ICE water

INGREDIENTS: The Filling

1 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

1 tbsp milk

1 tbsp all purpose flour

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cup chopped pecans

For the Crust:

In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, and salt, pulsing to mix.  Add in the chopped up butter and the honey, pulsing until the mixture looks like a course meal with some chunky, pea-sized butter bits.  As you continue to pulse the mix, add the ice water one tablespoon at a time. When the dough begins to clump, pinch some and see if it holds together.  If not, add more water until it does.

Take the dough out of the processor and place on a floured, flat surface.  Shape the dough into two discs, kneading only a small amount.  It is GOOD to still see some butter chunks in the dough - that's what makes the flakiness.  Sprinkle some flour on each disc and then wrap and refrigerate, preferably for at least an hour if not a whole day.  When you are ready to make the pie, take the dough out of the fridge and let it set for 10 minutes, so it gets soft and easier to roll out.  (This specific crust recipe, obviously, makes enough for TWO pecan pies - so you could make two, or freeze the other dough ball for later, OR if you are making a fruit pie, you have enough dough for a beautiful basket weave top!)

For the Filling:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs and stir in melted butter.  Add the brown sugar, honey, and flour, mixing well.  Finally, add your milk, 1 cup of nuts, and the vanilla.

After rolling out your pie crust and pressing it into a 9-inch pie pan, pour in the mixture.  Sprinkle the remaining pecans over the top of the liquid.

Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, and then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.  Bake at 350 for 30 - 40 minutes.

So delicious!  We even topped ours with some fresh whipped cream - literally just some heavy cream poured into a bowl and whisked until it thickens up.  Enjoy!

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A DAY IN PHOTOS - THANKSGIVING.

early to rise!

apples and cinnamon.

french toast for breakfast...you know, normal stuff.

we're famous! during the macy's thanksgiving day parade.

barb is clearly in the holiday spirit.

bugtussle gourds.

morning rituals.

life is so hard.  up at 9:30.

making some stuffing!

loading up bunker bill.

from scratch!

amazing pecan pie...no corn syrup here.

break on the patio for lunch.

barb can't wait for farm life.

oven ready!

debra's ohhhhmazing bread.

feast!

bunker bill preformed brilliantly.

lisa's beautiful table.

99% bugtussle food.

our new fambly.

pie! whipped cream! happy boy!

making memories.

probably discussing uk basketball.

obligatory "we're engaged" photo pose.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING everyone! so much love.

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BREAKING BREAD.

No one can talk about Thanksgiving quite like a mom. So I wont even bother. I employed my mother to bake the bread for our feast this evening and she seemed suspiciously eager. She then sent me a wonderful collection of the memories it evokes, and everything made sense:"Thanksgiving morning, 1950's:  my mother and aunts were kitchen-giddy. Grandma, quiet and reserved, tended a hugely-formidable bird.  My mother told stories and spicily tap-danced as if she were again dancing with Howard Hughes as in the 20's, now simply tossing homegrown green beans and onions with a flourish into a kettle on the potbellied stove. Aunts Margaret and Norma peeled potatoes and brewed bottomless iced tea. Yet the true life of the party was the yeast and flour atop the heavy oak table in Aunt Katie's kitchen, a table that I tippie-toed under, yet stretching every muscle to peek at what smelled so good.  The bread was the center of the kitchen's universe, for around that bread that the four Rosendahl sister's conversation bubbled and bustled with all the oohs and aaahs and oopsies of homespun 1950's women.  From a tin-sounding black and white television set in a distant room was Macy's mystical Thanksgiving Day Parade, punctuated occasionally by the men of the house awaiting football and feast.  There was fun and games out there, but the life was in the bread."Hannah and I are both excited to have our families together this year. When we separately made our decisions to leave our respective big city lives and move home to farm, family was an overwhelming factor. We wanted to be closer to them. We wanted to involve them in our new lives. We wanted to provide them with good food and we wanted to start making more family memories. Lastly, we wanted to break bread together. So Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours––I'l let my mom take it away:"I learned to assist in the bread baking in the 50's, given token tasks like measuring flour and greasing bread pans.  As a pre-teen, mom and I baked our own bread at home. I perfected the art of getting water prepped for yeast––now, understanding that it had to be just lukewarm and not an bit warmer or cooler, noting just a hint of warmth to the wrist––so that the yeast would add life to the flour and salt.  I learned how to feel the precise stretch of bread surface when it was time to turn the bread to a bowl to rise. And tonite,  I was reminded of those tasks just now as if I'd done them yesterday.  It's been since you were a toddler that I baked bread. The scent, the tasks, the bubbles at the surface of the ready-for-oven loaf were as present as they were 50 years ago.  It was as if Aunt Katie was right there to gently mentor and mom tapdancing in the background. Katie had a note in her cookbook that stated "I am the Queen because I bake the Bread".  Tonight, I feel like the Queen.  When I thumped on the golden base of the bread, it resounded in all it's hollow perfection, just the way God intended!The only difficult task here is resisting slicing into one of these incredibly perfect loaves!  On Thanksgiving, we'll break bread as a family.  It means the world of memories to me."

she sent us visual proof...can't wait to taste them!

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THE LEGEND OF BUNKER BILL.

During my first year at Bugtussle, we raised turkeys.In lieu of the heritage breed turkeys like your Bourbon Red's or Narragansett's, we opted to raise the conventional, broad-breasted turkeys...but to raise them unconventionally. They lived their entire lives outside, protected from predation by solar-electrified fencing, with constant visits from your's truly. I loved those turkeys. I loved Tomahawk, and I loved Iceberg. I loved Galliopo, Bunker Bill, Chaos, Gunnison, Gravner, and Beardo. I named them, too, because I was a fool in love. Then November came, and we had to process them. Here's an excerpt from my original blog on the subject:"As Michael Pollan has pointed out, "process" is a kind term for killing, cleaning and packaging, but that's what it is: killing. The night before, we loaded them all in the truck, and as the truck pulled away with all of my buddies staring at me, my heart sank, and the next day we killed them. I helped. I can't be more honest when I say it was the hardest day of my life, and I still haven't reconciled it completely. Killing is not easy, and truthfully, I'm glad it's not easy. I'm glad it was hard on me. It shouldn't be easy." I went to New York for Thanksgiving and took Tomahawk with me for the meal. I brined him for two days, then smoked him for 13 hours, and nothing that's ever been killed has ever been done quite as much justice. The fact remains, though: killing these birds was the hardest thing I ever had to do and I was not looking forward to doing it again this year. Luckily, as fate would have it, I received a phone call in June from the farm while I was on delivery in Gallatin.  The hatchery had called to say our turkeys didn't hatch––a somewhat common occurrence in the farming world––and we would not be raising turkeys this year. With a dauntingly busy season ahead of us, I think we were all a bit relieved. No one more than myself. That did leave the dilemma as to what we were going to eat this year, which leads us to The Legend of Bunker Bill.Bill got his name late in the season when he mysteriously broke his leg and spent the rest of his life limping around after me like a determined little soldier. It sounds sad, but he always seemed to be in good, curious spirits regardless of his disability. However, when we processed him, his body was a little beat up from his flailing nature so I opted to take him because no one was going to have a chance to use him. I had planned on cooking him over the winter then just never had a chance. The next thing I knew, I was back on the farm and he remained in the freezer until the season ended a few weeks ago. When you take a life, you begin to see the life that once inhabited your food. It would take a seriously convincing argument to ever get me to want to raise turkeys again, but I couldn't let Bill's life go to waste. Now, having inspected him and apologized, Bunker Bill is sitting in brine in the kitchen, waiting for tomorrow's feast. I'm thankful for his patience. I'm thankful for the opportunity to cook for my family––both old and new. And I'm thankful for the experience of raising turkeys, as they connected me to being thankful.- Jesse.

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