Pumpkin pie

Nothing smells better to me than a pumpkin pie baking in the oven. My all time favorite smell of fall. But even more than the smell of pumpkin pie, I love the taste of pumpkin pie. But I had never tried to make my own pumpkin pie. I always felt I could never make pumpkin pie as good as Granny or Mama. But today I really wanted a pumpkin pie, so I decided to give it a try.

I found this super easy recipe on the internet at: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/perfect-pumpkin-pie/

Ingredients:

1 15 oz can pumpkin
1 14 oz can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk
2 large eggs
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 9 in unbaked pie crust

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Whisk pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, spices and salt in medium bowl until smooth. Pour into crust. Bake 15 minutes. (After 15 minutes, I put tin foil around the edges of the pie crust to keep it from burning.)
Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue baking 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted 1 inch from crust comes out clean. Cool. Garnish as desired. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator. 

This pie is so good! My whole family loved it. And now that I know how easy it is to make pumpkin pie, I will be having it all the time!

Chili

One of my very nice co-workers, Mrs. Elizabeth Polk,  asked me the other day if I had a good chili recipe. I told her I thought it was a good recipe. She asked if I would share it. I said "Sure, but do you need measurements?" And she said "Well, measurements are good." I said "That might pose a problem." Because I don't usually measure my ingredients when making chili. And as a result, my chili usually turns out a little differently every time. But one very important thing to remember about chili is this: chili is a dish that is completely customizable to individual tastes. If you don't like one ingredient, you can change it for another or you can completely leave it out. It's not going to hurt the chili. If you don't like spicy chili, you can make it as mild as you like. Or you can make it as hot as you like. But it is very hard to mess up a pot of chili.

Well, Mrs. LizBeth got me thinking about chili. And since the weather is so nice today, I felt it was a good day for chili and measurements and a blog post. LOL!

Now everyone has their own way that they like their chili. I like my chili chunky. And I like for it to have some spice. Not too much spice that it's too hot to eat. But enough spice that it wakes up the taste buds and they dance around a little. I like to let my chili simmer on low all day so that all the flavors can mix together happily. So here is the recipe (with measurements):

1 TBS parsley
1 TBS minced garlic
1 bell pepper, diced
1 banana pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
1 lb hamburger
1 lb ground sausage
2 cans tomatoes
1 can ro-tel tomatoes
2 cans spicy chili beans
1 tsp cayenne red pepper
salt
pepper

Saute the parsley, garlic, bell pepper, banana pepper, and onion in oil of your choice.

In a separate pan, brown the hamburger and ground sausage.

Once it is all browned, drain off the excess grease. Then add the pepper and onion mixture to the hamburger and sausage in a large pot or a crock pot.

Then add the tomatoes and chili beans. Add the red pepper. Salt and pepper to taste.

Cover the pot and let it simmer on medium/low for at least 2 hours. You can let it simmer for as long as you want. And by simmer, I mean that the chili needs to be barely bubbling.

If you put it in a crock pot, just turn it on low and leave it alone and it will be perfect. I like to start my chili in the morning and let it simmer all day. The house smells wonderful and everyone is so ready for chili when it's time to eat.