Looking For The Ideal Thanksgiving Turkey Recipe?

Today we bring to you Michael Symon’s Turkey Recipe and our Piece of Cake Pumpkin Pie Recipe.

Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays and we hope you’ll enjoy yours this year as well.

We’ve included our famous “Piece of Cake” up-side down pumpkin pie recipe which always get rave reviews and it’s a snap to make (see below).

And for our second offering, we bring you a recipe we tried last year which turned out to be one of the best turkey preparations we’ve ever done so we plan on replicating it again this year. If fussing over the bird in the oven isn’t your cup of tea or you’d rather spend time with friends and family (or football), then this recipe is for you.

It’s from Michael Symon, famous Food Network celebrity and Iron Chef, not to mention his famous restaurant accomplishments in Ohio–Lolita and Lola’s--the latter which we visited this summer.

The idea is to use cheese cloth soaked in a delicious herbal infused butter broth then wrapped around the bird to create a self-basting turkey where you put it in the oven and leave it alone. The result is an amazingly tender and moist bird with an extraordinarily crispy outer skin (is that redundant?).

This is the link to his recipe…

We think if you give these two simple recipes a try you’ll be very pleased.

Happy Thanksgiving from Drew & Christine Morgan!

If you’re looking to try something different this year for Thanksgiving dinner, or you’d just like to minimize how much time you spend in the kitchen, we have a recipe we’ve used for years that’s quick and easy to prepare and will wow your family or guests. We call the recipe “Piece of Cake Pumpkin Pie”, a play on words because of the simplicity in construction as well as the cake mixed used for the crust.

As far as we know the original recipe came from Café for all Seasons on Traval Street in San Francisco. When I worked at San Francisco State I always looked forward to the seasonal holiday treats they’d make and they freely shared their recipes.

Imagine an inverted pie made with a crust on top and then flipped over for presentation. The pumpkin is spooned right into the pie dish while the crust is made of cake mix and pecans and is sprinkled right on top before baking. Total prep time for two pies is less than 10 minutes. The end product produces a crisp crust with a cookie like texture enhanced by the pecans which add a nice crunch. Of course there’s the creamy pie filling topped with warm caramel sauce and whipped cream making this pie more than just pumpkin and crust.

These are best made a day ahead and refrigerated to help the pie set and free-up the oven for the rest of your Thanksgiving feast.

You can get the full recipe in a pdf here…