Happy Thanksgiving.

 I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. Eat what you want to eat, be with those you want to be with, and stay safe and healthy. For the past couple of Thanksgivings, I've posted my mother's recipe for "impossible pumpkin pie", so I thought I'd mix it up this year and give you my paternal grandmother's recipe for another one of my dearest favorites, old fashioned pecan pie. I'm using a ready-made pie crust for this recipe, because why make it hard on yourself?

My great-grandfather had a pecan orchard on his farm in eastern Oklahoma (the very farm I modeled Alafair’s home after in my Alafair Tucker mysteries). Every fall my family would go out to the farm and spend an afternoon picking up pecans that had fallen from the trees. This usually happened late in the season. The little pecans were sweet and delicious, but hard as heck to crack. By the time I was old enough to remember how it was done, my grandmother had a little pecan-cracking device, which made the task much easier. Pecan pie has always been one of my favorites, and it’s fairly easy to make. However, I warn you, Dear Reader, that it is not low-cal. But then you only live once.

Grandma Casey's Pecan Pie

one nine-inch unbaked pie shell

Filling:

3 eggs

2/3 cup of sugar

1/3 cup of melted butter (if using unsalted butter, add 1/2 tsp salt. A pinch of salt gives the pie depth and keeps it from being too sweet.)

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup corn syrup (I like dark corn syrup, but light works just as well.)

1 cup of pecan halves (or pieces)

Pre-heat the oven to 375•F. Beat the eggs, then stir in the rest of the filling ingredients until well-blended. Pour into the pie crust and bake 40 to 50 minutes, until set. The pecans will rise to the top.