Pecan Pralines

Between studying for the CBEST, I watched a few minutes of Paula Deen and she was making pecan pralines with a friend. Feeling inspired and knowing I had all the ingredients, I decided to take a crack at it!

The recipe I made is a combination from a recipe on the all recipes website, Buttermilk Pralines, and Stan Strickland's Pecan Pralines Recipe.

Pecan Pralines

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk (I only had milk on hand, so I added 1 tbs of lemon juice to the cup of milk and waited 10 minutes)
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/3 stick of butter (no substitutes)
• 1 1/2 cups pecan halves
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:


In a heavy 3-qt. saucepan, combine all ingredients except the pecans.
In a heavy 3-qt. saucepan, combine all ingredients except the pecans. Cook and stir over medium heat until a candy thermometer reads 238- 241 degrees F or a soft ball stage**. This takes patience so don't get discouraged. (Don't I sound like a hypocrite?)

**What is a soft ball stage you ask? This is a method one can use if you don't have a candy thermometer. At this temperature, sugar syrup dropped into cold water will form a soft, flexible ball. If you remove the ball from water, it will flatten like a pancake after a few moments in your hand. Fudge, pralines, and fondant are made by cooking ingredients to the soft-ball stage.



Stir in pecans then remove from heat. Beat with a wooden spoon until mixture loses its gloss and begins to set, about 8 minutes.

Quickly drop by teaspoonfuls (or whatever size you want) onto foil-lined baking sheets. Cool.

You really do have to move quickly because it sets up fast. The last few pralines did not look as nice as the first ones I scooped out. I will definitely be making these again!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Greg and I decided to make a thanksgiving dinner at Erika's apartment. It was a simple menu but filling. I got to Erika's at about 10am to make the cranberry relish and to check the turkey to see if it was thawed. (Didn't want a repeat of last year). I couldn't get a hold of Greg on his phone, and not wanting to wait, I decided to do the bird myself. I put our 12 pound turkey into Erika's roaster for a little over 3 hours at 325 degrees and it turned out beautifully.


We had the traditional Goss appetizers of shrimp and spicy cocktail sauce and caviar with cream cheese on a cracker and cocktail onion. We had sparkling cider, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, rolls, cranberry relish and gravy as our meal.


Neither of us was feeling any type of dessert, so we were content with the cranberry relish. The recipe is below.

Cranberry Relish
One bag fresh cranberries
One can mandarin oranges
1/2 cup - 1 cup of sugar
Half tub of cool whip
Grind the cranberries in a food processor. To keep some of the texture, don't over do it. Empty contents into a bowl and add the sugar and then the cool whip. Taste to see if there is enough sugar to your liking. Fold in the mandarin oranges. Put bowl in the fridge for about an hour so the flavors can marry and the sugar can be absorbed by the cranberries.


I was going to bring my camera but forgot so I had to settle for using my phone, hence the poor quality of the pictures.

While the bird was cooking, Greg and I had our appetizers and watched 'Evolution.' During dinner we watched the movie 'Juno.' Nothing exciting happened but it was a nice relaxing day. It was weird to think though that this is already the 2nd Thanksgiving since Julie's been gone. Her favorite part of the meal was definitely the rolls. I only had one, but Greg had 3. I'd like to think he ate some in her honor. :)