There’s no “homemade” pie easier
than an ice cream pie!  

Here are two easy holiday desserts that are sure to delight. The pumpkin ice cream/frozen yogurt pie is just as rich and creamy as the traditional variety with the added indulgence of a toffee, walnut topping and optional chocolate drizzle. The peppermint ice cream pie can be made with plain peppermint, mint chip, chocolate mint chip or candy cane ice cream.

The original pumpkin frozen yogurt pie was created by Louise McLane and is courtesy of Sweet Scoops Frozen Yogurt, our favorite frozen yogurt (read the review—it’s probiotic, too). Both recipes make a 9-inch pie.

Use the gingersnap crust with pumpkin and the chocolate crust with peppermint.

Gingersnap or Chocolate Crumb Crust Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- For pumpkin pie: 1½ cups gingersnap crumbs (24 small gingersnaps, crushed and pulsed in a food processor until finely ground); for peppermint pie, substitute Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt

Preparation
1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Lightly butter pie pan. Stir together all ingredients in a bowl and press evenly on bottom and up side of pie pan.
3. Bake until crisp, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a rack to room temperature.

Filling Ingredients
– 2 pints pumpkin frozen yogurt (you can order Sweet Scoops online) or your favorite pumpkin ice cream, softened until spreadable
OR
– 2 pints peppermint ice cream

Preparation
1. Spoon softened frozen yogurt/ice cream evenly into pie shell. Place in freezer while preparing topping.

Topping Ingredients For Pumpkin Pie
– 1 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped
– 1 cup English toffee bits (such as Skor)

Preparation:
– Mix together walnuts and toffee bits. Sprinkle liberally and evenly on top of pie.
– Press slightly into frozen yogurt or ice cream to adhere. Return pie to freezer while preparing glaze.

Topping Ingredients For Peppermint Pie
– 1 cup crushed candy cane
– 1 cup mini chocolate chips

Preparation:
– Mix together candy cane and chocolate chips. Sprinkle liberally and evenly on top of pie.
– Press slightly into ice cream to adhere. Return pie to freezer while preparing glaze.

Bitter Chocolate Glaze Ingredients (For Either Pie)
– 2 ounces (2 squares) unsweetened chocolate
– 2 tablespoons butter

Preparation
1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a small bowl over hot water on moderate heat (do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the water), stirring until completely smooth.
2. With a spoon, drizzle spoonfuls of the glaze over the pie in a zigzag pattern.
3. Return pie to freezer for a half hour before serving, or until glaze starts to look dull.

Be prepared to accept compliments!

Mince pie is as customary at Christmas as egg nog. Yet, have you ever had mince pie?

Mince pie dates back to medieval times, when it was a meat pie (as were most pies of the time) based on minced venison, and known as mincemeat pie. The recipe did include dried fruits, sugar and spices.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the meat began to disappear from the recipe, which retained the fruit and evolved into the sweet and spicy mince pie we know today. Recipes typically include candied and fresh fruits, nuts, sugar, spices, wine and suet. (Suet is raw beef fat or mutton fat, particularly the hard fat found around the loins and kidneys. A vegetarian suet is made from palm oil and rice flour.)

The Walkers Shortbread folks sell boxed Luxury Fruit Mince Tarts during the holiday season, which contain a very traditional fruity and tangy filling.

Instead of slicing a whole pie, consider these Walkers Luxury Fruit Mince Tarts, in regular (about 3″ diameter, six tarts/box) or mini sizes. Delicious warm or cold, you can serve them plain or British-style, with clotted (devon) cream, custard, or brandy sauce—or even with some vanilla ice cream.

Serve a warm mincemeat tart from Walkers
with a cup of tea. Very British, very seasonal. Photo by Hannah Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

Serve mince pie or tarts as a snack, at tea or as a traditional dessert during the season. The Walkers mincemeat contains apples, currants, sultanas and candied citrus peal. It’s sweet and lemony rather than heavily spicy, in a crisp crust.

Legend has it that mince pies were a favorite food of Father Christmas, so pie was left on a plate at the foot of the chimney as a thank-you for well-filled stockings. Perhaps you should hedge your bets by leaving a tart or two.

The tarts are available at retailers nationwide and can be found online.

What should you do with your leftover stuffing? Make a delicious omelet or cheese omelet for breakfast!

1. Beat two eggs and melt 1/2 tablespoon butter in a nonstick pan.
2. Add the eggs and let them set; then add 1/3 cup stuffing and a slice of cheese (we like fresh mozzarella) to one half of the pan.
3. Gently flip the other half of the omelet over, and cook to the desired consistency.
4. You could pour gravy on your omelet or top it with some fresh chopped tomatoes, but a garnish of cranberry sauce might taste even better.

You can also add other leftovers. Here, we paired our sausage stuffing with asparagus and chopped up some tomatoes that didn’t make it into the salad.

As you’re relaxing over your omelet, print our Egg Glossary and peruse the different types of eggs.

An omelet from Thanksgiving leftovers. Yum!
Photo courtesy Hot-dog.org.

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Photo courtesy Plimoth.org. There’s lots more
on the website!  

What did they eat at the first Thanksgiving in 1621—which was not called Thanksgiving by the celebrants? It was probably referred to as a harvest festival. (President Abraham Lincoln declared the first national Thanksgiving Day in 1863.)

We know that in 1621, the governor of Plimoth Plantation sent four men fowling, and “they four in one day shot as much fowl.” Perhaps it was turkey, perhaps not. The native Wampanoag guests killed five deer. About ninety of them attended, and the feast lasted for three days.

There’s much to know about the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag People that we never learned in school. But Plimoth Plantation, a historical site, offers terrific education online.

Before or after Thanksgiving dinner, the website is a great alternative to football for young and old alike.

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Don’t thaw in the bathtub while bathing the kids.  

For 10 months a year, the Butterball Hotline is an automated tip line. But for almost 30 years, live operators take over during peak turkey season, November and December, and a tidal wave of people (last year, around 100,000) phone for their advice. If we may cross over to fiction for a moment, even President Jed Bartlett called for help, in one of the more endearing scenes on “The West Wing.”

The 55 operators who staff Butterball’s Turkey Talk-Line know their stuff(ing): All have degrees in home economics, food science or nutrition. While some have been on the line since its inception, newbies are trained to address every situation, from the banal but necessary (optimal size turkey to buy, thawing techniques, cooking times and temperatures, amount of stuffing needed, how to use a meat thermometer, carving knives, presentation tips and food-safety concerns) to the erratic (you’d be surprised how many people thaw the turkey in the bathwater while bathing the kids).

More recently, everyone has had to come up the curve on deep fat frying a turkey, which has become a more popular way to prepare the holiday bird. (But don’t get too excited—it’s the least healthy way to prepare a turkey.)

The hotline, 1.800.288.8372, is available 365/24/7.

We received a Thanksgiving cookie bouquet and, though surrounded by piles of food samples requiring tasting, took a moment from the work of the day to relax with a cup of tea and enjoy the hand-decorated turkeys, pumpkins and ears of corn.

While many cookie bouquets are sugar cookies—hard and pretty flavorless—Corso’s Cookies produces softer, higher-quality shortbread, made with butter and almond flavoring. Even after a big lunch, they were popular with our group of Nibblers.

If you’ve missed the opportunity to send a Thanksgiving bouquet prior to the big day, there’s still time to send some for weekend enjoyment—or a Thank You bouquet to your dinner host. And of course, there are Happy Anything Else, Congratulations Get Well and many more cookie greetings. With the skyrocketing cost of paper greeting, cookie bouquets may become the new standard way of messaging.

We gobbled them up! Photo courtesy CorsosCookies.com.

Here’s a different pumpkin pie for your
holiday: made with pumpkin ice cream
or frozen yogurt.  

If you’re looking for something special beyond the traditional pumpkin pie, how about an ice cream or frozen yogurt pumpkin pie? This recipe, created by Louise McLane, comes to us from our favorite frozen yogurt purveyor, Sweet Scoops (read the review of this fabulous probiotic yogurt). Just scoop the ice cream or frozen yogurt into a pie shell and top with toffee bits, chopped walnuts and a chocolate drizzle.

Gingersnap Crumb Crust Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1½ cups gingersnap crumbs (24 small gingersnaps, crushed and pulsed in a food processor until finely ground)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt

Preparation

1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Lightly butter a 9″ pie pan. Stir together all ingredients in a bowl and press evenly on bottom and up side of pie pan.
3. Bake until crisp, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a rack to room temperature.

Filling Ingredients
– 2 pints Sweet Scoops Pumpkin Frozen Yogurt or your favorite pumpkin ice cream, softened until spreadable

Preparation
1. Spoon softened frozen yogurt evenly into pie shell.
2. Place in freezer while preparing topping.

Topping Ingredients
– 1 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped
– 1 cup toffee bits (you can use a Skor bar)

Preparation
– Mix together walnuts and toffee bits. Sprinkle liberally and evenly on top of pie.
– Press slightly into frozen yogurt or ice cream to adhere. Return pie to freezer while preparing glaze.

Bittersweet Chocolate Glaze Ingredients
– 2 ounces (2 squares) bittersweet chocolate
– 2 tablespoons butter

Preparation
1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a small bowl over hot water on moderate heat (do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the water), stirring until completely smooth.
2. With a spoon, drizzle spoonfuls of the glaze over the pie in a zigzag pattern.
3. Return pie to freezer for a half hour before serving, or until glaze starts to look dull.
4. Alternative: Instead of chocolate glaze, serve with a drizzle of your favorite chocolate sauce.

If you have just one oven but lots of side dishes to cook for Thanksgiving, this clever, multi-tiered oven rack may work for you. You can cook multiple dishes at once—the yams, Brussels sprouts and stuffing, for example.

The rack, which is 15″ x 11″ x 8¼”, holds up to three levels of heavy casserole dishes and then folds flat for storage. This rack is from Sur La Table (online at SurLaTable.com); but you may be able to find one locally as well. Easy assembly required.

Why didn’t we think of this one? Photo
courtesy SurLaTable.com.

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Knorr + your pan drippings = easy, good gravy. Chart courtesy Consumer Reports.  

With everything you’re doing on Thanksgiving, do you have to turn those drippings into gravy, too?

Consumer Reports did a taste test with commercial gravies to consider the options. The tasters tried 10 products—four dry mixes (add water, stir, and heat) and six canned or jarred gravies (just heat). They also tried them with and without the turkey pan drippings (minus the fat), which some products suggest—and which produced the best results.

Results

As we always find when reviewing specialty products with THE NIBBLE, the same proved true with Consumer Reports’ test of supermarket brands: Neither packaging nor price was related to quality. The best and worst gravies were dry mixes, and that low-rated Franco-American was relatively pricey.

Nutrition
Per serving, most of the gravies have 20 to 25 calories, very little fat, and 260 to 360 milligrams of sodium. (The exception, Serv-A-Gravy, has 15 calories and 210 mg of sodium.) Many include a little fat, stock, or broth from chicken or turkey, plus a dairy product. Those without meat flavor, fat or dairy—Simply Organic and Serv-A-Gravy—were lowest-rated.

Bottom Line
Try Knorr with pan drippings (minus fat).

Most Thanksgiving dinner tables become too filled with food to hold large floral arrangements. If you receive large arrangements, place them on the coffee table or other central place where everyone can enjoy them. But if you’d like some decor on your table, opt for one of the following quick-and-easy ideas:

Insert into a tumbler filled with cranberries.

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