Recipe of the week -- Chocolate Pecan Pie

This is a chocolate pecan pie, but normally we call it Turtle Pie because it reminds me so much of a turtle sundae when you add whipped cream on it. It's a Thanksgiving staple at our house. I have to make it every year. This year was no exception. I made it, but there wasn't a lot of people here to eat it so, more for me!!

This recipe originally came from a Taste of Home event I went to years ago. They demonstrated this on stage and I had to make it the second I got home. I've been hooked ever since.

Turtle Pie

3 eggs
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup pecan halves, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks
1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell

In a medium bowl, combine eggs, corn syrup, sugar, butter and vanilla with a whisk. Stir in pecans. Sprinkle chocolate chunks over the bottom of the pie shell. Pour pecan mixture over the chocolate chunks in the pie shell.

Bake at 350* for 50-55 minutes. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours; refrigerate until serving time.


If you need a recipe for the crust, I have one in the oatmeal pie recipe. Just search through the recipes. The chocolate chunks are made by Nestle and are different than chocolate chips. Chocolate chips will work, but not nearly as well.

We had this pie eaten in less than 24 hours. I think I'm going to have to bake another soon.

Fun Photo Editor

Okay, I love free. Free is a very good thing.

I found this site, FotoFlexer, one night while looking for a way to add some text to a photo. I didn't play with it much then, but today I decided to make a Christmas photo and just kept on playing. It's really easy to use. You upload a photo (or get one off many sites including Facebook), edit it and then save it back to your computer. Each photo took 5 minutes or less.

Here is a sample of what I did.

The Thanksgiving weekend......so far

Our Thanksgiving weekend got off to an early start with a very interesting email Tuesday morning. Before I'd even woke up enough to get dressed, I received an email from the farm we bought our very first alpacas from. I had expressed interest in a female they had way back in the spring. We talked a little, but it never got to the buying stage. Well, in this email they offered her to us at a price that was easy to live with. Let's just say, I said yes before I even talked to Jim.

We went and picked her up Wednesday afternoon. She's a beautiful brown suri and her name is Wella (short for Welcome Home). I finally was able to get one pic of her this morning as the snow started clearing. She seems to have settled in fine and is making new friends with her pasture mates.

Thanksgiving day had me getting up earlier than I like to get the turkey in the oven. We got it stuffed and in by 8. Then it was off to do chores. While outside, my sister called to say they weren't going to make it. Both she and my niece were sick. It turned into a weird, quiet, unholiday-like day with only us and my parents. See, my other sister lives in Illinois and wasn't able to make it either. By the end of the day we did have some of our older kids pop in and out so it wasn't completely a wash. 7 kids out of 8 on one day is nearly a record. :o)

We went to bed early because poor Jim had to be at work by 5:30 to deal with the crazy crowds and me, well.....for the first time in 4 years I went out on Black Friday. All because of my niece. I went to one store for her present and then back home. It really wasn't that bad, but I avoided the entire mall, wal-mart, best buy area of town. Where I was going was the complete opposite of all that so it wasn't bad. I think there were about 15 people waiting in line at this store.

Now I'm home, baking bread, getting lunch around and really wishing I could take a nap. Maybe after lunch....