I am still recovering from Thanksgiving and the food overload! It was quite the delicious Thanksgiving this year. Bruce's sister, Lynn, came for Thanksgiving since she had business to attend to this week in Seattle. She arrived Wednesday before Thanksgiving when I made that most delicious beef stew from Ina Garten's cookbook, Back to Basics. For dessert on Wednesday, I made another recipe from her cookbook, Cooking for Jeffrey, called Pumpkin Flan with Maple Caramel and it was amazing, thus I'm posting it on my blog. I guess you could say I'm stuck on Ina Garten right now who is commonly known as the Barefoot Contessa. I watch her cooking shows while I do my twice daily knee exercises and it really gets me in the mood to cook. Bruce has been doing the cooking around here lately because my knee rehab has been taking me so much time. I'm still going to physical therapy twice a week and also massage therapy twice a week. Since I did not have very good range of motion in my knee before my surgery, my muscles are out of shape. Now that my range has improved with my new knee, my muscles are in agony because I haven't used them in so long. I have to re-train my muscles to flex and extend with my leg but they don't know how. So, my rehab just continues but it is improving every week and I do lots of exercises at home. My sister hosted Thanksgiving at her house so that made things easy for me. I took over a few Thanksgiving dishes but really, just getting the house ready for a sit-down dinner of 15 or so people is the most work.
My sister does a really nice job with special occasions meals.
Since I did not host Thanksgiving this year, I offered to have everyone over for a potluck on Friday to bring leftovers and we smoked another turkey on the Traeger barbecue. This is our favorite way to do Thanksgiving turkey using a wet brine and it turns out great. It has a subtle smoke flavor (not real strong like ham) and it's a perfect amount of saltiness.
I also stuffed the turkey with dressing and made more mashed potatoes and gravy. Then everyone else brought leftovers and we have a casual affair which is always a lot of fun with more Thanksgiving food.
Everyone was eager to line up to get a piece.
If you couldn't decide what kind to choose, your dessert plate ended up looking like this:
The cream pies were amazing. I ended up using Ina Garten's chocolate banana cream pie recipe only I left off the bananas and made a separate banana cream pie which ended up being the favorite.
We just don't eat cream pies that often and you forget how good they are! Lauren invited us over for dinner at her place on Saturday and she made my Nicoise salad, something on the more healthy side after all our Thanksgiving feasting.
This is one of my favorite salads and one of Lauren's favorite, too. It really hit the spot, but of course, I had to bring leftover cream pies for dessert. We had a very fun evening as the Thanksgiving weekend continued.
If you are looking for a wonderful holiday dessert to make this year, you might want to consider this Pumpkin Flan with Maple Caramel. The caramel was wonderful, so much so you might want to lick the plate. It's the perfect recipe for a gluten-free option and slightly different than the usual pumpkin pie. It has a slight hint of orange zest in the recipe which makes it totally different than a pumpkin pie but the orange and pumpkin really compliment each other. Add a dollop of whip cream and you've got the perfect dessert for the holidays.
Serves 8-10
For the Caramel:
3/4 cup sugar
1//3 cup pure Grade A maple syrup
1/2 tsp. fleur de sel
For the Pumpkin Flan:
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk
1 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
1/2 cup (4 oz) Italian mascarpone
4 extra large eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp pure maple extract, such as Boyajian
2 tsp. grated orange zest (2 oranges)
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1. For the caramel, combine the sugar, maple syrup, and 1/3 cup water in a small, deep, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a boil, swirling the pan (don't stir!) to dissolve the sugar. Cook at a low boil with stirring for 5 to 10 minutes, until the mixture turns a golden brown and registers 230 degrees on a candy thermometer. (Turn the stove temperature up high enough that it reaches 230 degrees within 10 minutes but not so high that it burns)
2. Take off the heat, swirl in the flour de sel, and immediately pour into an 8 X 2-inch round cake pan (not a springform!) My cake pan is old and scratched up...
3. Set aside to cook for 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, place the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, canned pumpkin , and mascarpone in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat on medium-low speed until smooth.
5, Whisk in the eggs, vanilla, maple extract, orange zest, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Gently pour the pumpkin mixture into the pan with the caramel so they don't combine.
6. Place the pan in a roasting pan large enough to hold the cake pan flat and fill the roasting pan with enough of the hottest tap water to come halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake in the center of the oven for 70-75 minutes, until the custard is just set. It will be firm but still jiggle slightly in the middle; a knife inserted into the center of the flan will come out clean.
7. Remove the flan from the water bath, place on a cooling rack, and cool completely.
8. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a least 3 hours. Don't tilt the pan or the caramel will run out!
9. Run a small knife around the edge of the flan. Turn a flat serving plate with a slight lip over the cake pan and flip them, turning the flan out onto the plate. The caramel should run out over the flan.
10. Cut into wedges and serve with the caramel spooned over each slice.
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