Spiced Buttermilk Pie Recipe

(Adapted from Olivia’s Buttermilk Pie Recipe)

Here’s what you need:

1 cup of Sugar (you can add more if you like it sweeter, but this was perfect for us)
1/3 cup of Butter (5 1/3 Tablespoons), Softened
3 Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup Baking Mix (like Bisquick or Hodgson Mill Baking Mix)
1 cup of Buttermilk
3 pinches of ground Cloves (about 1/8 tsp.)
1 tsp of ground Cinnamon
1/3 tsp of ground Ginger
(you can totally play around with the spices and add Nutmeg instead or omit a spice… I just used what I usually use for Pumpkin Pie)

Here’s what you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 9 inch pie plate.

2. Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix well with a wire wisk. Pour the mixture into the pie plate.

3. Bake for around 45 – 50 minutes until a knife inserts in the center comes out clean.

4. Let cool for a few minutes and top with homemade whipped cream!

Homemade Gingerbread Cookies Recipe:

Here’s what you need:

• 3/4 Cup of Salted Butter
• 3/4 Cup (packed) Brown Sugar or Sucanat
• 1/2 Cup Molasses
• 1 Egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 cups of Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 cup of Whole Grain White Flour (Feel free to use 3 cups of regular flour, but I feel better about eating 10 cookies if it has whole wheat in them, lol!)
• 2 1/2 teaspoons Ground Ginger
• 1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt (if you used salted butter), or 1/4 teaspoon salt if you used unsalted butter
• Around 1/4 of a cup of Organic Cane Sugar (or just regular sugar)

Here’s what you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. Cream the butter and brown sugar in a large mixer.

3. Once the butter and sugar are mixed together well, then add all of the other “wet” ingredients including the molasses, egg, and vanilla.

4. Mix the flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt together in a separate bowl and then add SLOWLY to the wet ingredients.

5. Mix everything together well.

6. Roll the dough into little balls about 1 1/2 inches thick. Roll each dough ball in the granulated sugar and place on the cookie sheet that was lined with parchment paper.

7. Bake for around 10 minutes, take the cookies out of the oven, and then let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for another 5-10 minutes or so to firm up some more.

8. Cool the cookies on a wire rack and enjoy!!

Turkey & Sausage Gumbo Recipe

What You Need (for around 2 1/2 gallons of Gumbo):

1 Turkey Carcass (I really don’t like that word, btw)
At least 2 Gallons of Water
Extra pieces of Turkey meat (either white, dark, or both)
Favorite link sausage (about a pound)
1 1/2 cups of Tony Cachere’s Roux Mix
2 cups diced Onions (about 1 large onion)
2 cups diced Celery (about 4-6 stalks celery)
1 can of Rotel (we use original, but you can use Mild or Hot if you would prefer)
1 can of Tomatoes
2 packages (10 – 12 oz) Frozen Cut Okra
Salt & Pepper to taste
Steamed Rice
Filé (optional)

What You Do: 

1.   Put the turkey carcass into a HUGE pot (pretty much the biggest pot you have) and add the 2 gallons of water.  Let the turkey slowly boil on the stove for several hours, or you can put it in the oven on a low temperature (around 220) covered overnight.

2.  Once it has made the broth (wasn’t that easy?), take the turkey carcass out of the broth and set it aside to cool.

3.  Once the broth has cooled some, strain the broth through a large metal mesh strainer to get an extra pieces out.  Put the broth back into the big pot, and put 2 cups of it into a small bowl and set aside.

4.  After the meat has cooled, take any extra turkey meat off of the bones and put the meat back into the broth.

5.   Slice your sausage (about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick) and lightly brown it in a skillet.  Once it’s lightly browned, transfer the sausage to the large pot of broth & turkey.

6.  KEEP the grease that the sausage made and sauté the onions and celery in the grease.  Once sautéed, add them into the pot too.  (Sautéed just means that you cook it until it’s somewhat see-through.  At least that’s my definition.  :) )

7.  Take your bowl of broth that you set aside earlier and SLOWLY add it to 1 and 1/2 cups of the Tony Cachere’s Roux Mix.  Stir really well as you are adding the broth to the roux (be sure to add it in slowly WHILE stirring) to make sure there aren’t any lumps.  Add the roux mix to the pot.

{NOTE: You can also make your own homemade roux, BUT you really need to know what you are doing because homemade roux burns SO easily.  I would just recommend using Tony Cachere’s if this is your first time.}

8.  Blend the canned tomatoes in a blender or food processor and add that to the pot.  You can also add the can of Rotel to the pot at this point (no need to blend it unless you want to).

9.   Add the leftover pieces of turkey to the large pot and let everything simmer on a low heat for at least an hour.

10.  During the last ten minutes, add in your packages of cut okra.  You can also add in a little bit of salt and pepper at this time (or you can just wait and let everyone add it to their bowl themselves).

11.  Serve over rice and sprinkle with filé if desired.  And enjoy!