Thanksgiving 2009

I have been away from “home” for four Thanksgiving holidays now and it’s always the hardest holiday for me. Thanksgiving was the time, from what I recall, that all of the family got together to laugh and tell stories over the best food. Christmas was always a small intimate setting so it’s easy for me to adjust to Christmas being only Seth and I, but Thanksgiving can be a little difficult. This year we went to Seth’s new shop and had Thanksgiving with all of the EOD guys and their families. It was nice to meet all the families but I still miss my good old Indiana Thanksgiving. So, in attempt to bring a little taste of Indiana into our Okinawan Thanksgiving I tempted to make a sugar cream pie. I browsed the internet and found a couple recipes, one of them was actually called HOOSIER Sugar Cream Pie. I ended up with one soupy mess and two gelatin-like blobs that I forgot to add vanilla to. So, three pies in the trash later I made some changes to the recipes and came up with my own. It was no Wick’s, but did the trick for now. For those of you non-Indiana readers sugar cream pie is kind of hard to explain. I guess it is like an egg custard pie without the eggs. It’s kind of a mix between creme brulee and vanilla pudding, but it’s a different kind of texture than those. The recipe is below the pic.

By the way, Thanksgiving 2010 is going to be held at our house in Niceville, Florida. You're all invited!

Erin’s Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie

• 1  and 1/3 cups white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, unsifted
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
• 2 cups half and half
• 4 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 (9-inch) pie shell, baked
• 1 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon if desired

1. Preheat oven broiler to high.
2. Mix sugar, flour and cornstarch in a medium pot. Add 4 tablespoons butter and half and half. Cook on medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until it begins to boil and becomes thick and creamy. Turn off heat and stir in vanilla extract.
3. Pour mixture into pie crust. Drizzle 1 tablespoon melted butter over top and sprinkle with cinnamon if desired. Put under broiler until butter bubbles and brown spots appear–about 10 minutes. Refrigerate.

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