Fall Harvest

Hey, y'all. I am so excited about today's show. I'm in here in the kitchen just thinking about wonderful things that remind me of the fall. I'm going to be making a pecan chicken, which will go perfectly with my baked acorn squash

And for dessert, I'm going to show you how to make a rich and creamy pumpkin cheesecake and delicious pear fritters, y'all

So grab your sweater, because summer's over, and we're cooking up a fall harvest feast

Let's get started with one of my favorite autumn dishes, and that's pecan chicken

I've got my chickens that I've quartered. And to give us a sticky base, we're going to add a cup of buttermilk and one egg

Now, you'll want to make sure that you've washed your chicken very good

I never cook a chicken that I don't wash. You want to make sure your chicken is real clean

All right, so we've mixed together our egg and our buttermilk. because the chickens are going swimming before I put them in their coats

Now, let me show you what I'm going to coat them with. I'm going to eyeball about a cup of flour

and I've got a cup of pecans that I have just almost pulverized

And I just did those in a food processor. It would take a long time to take a knife and mince them that fine

So pull out your blender or your food processor for that. Now I'm going to add a fourth of a cup of sesame seeds

And to that, I'm going to add a tablespoon of paprika. That's going to help our chicken get nice and brown

All right, now I'm going to add about a teaspoon of salt

And we're just going to mix this all together. And now I'm just going to grind up some fresh black pepper in there

I was born and raised in Albany, Georgia, which we consider it to be the pecan capital of the world

And there were pecan trees everywhere. And the first house that my husband and I bought had pecan trees in the yard

So I'd get out there and I'd pick up those pecans and I'd take them to the pecan company and sell those pecans

And that's what we would use to go to the fair because I felt like otherwise, you know, I just didn't have the money for something so frivolous as the fair

But it was something that I looked so forward to. All right

So I've got a dish over here, and I've gotten some chicken already started

And I put a stick of melted butter in the bottom of that pan

So let's get the rest of our chicken going. And you can see how I just quartered the chicken

Okay, so in our buttermilk and egg mixture, and like I said, this is going to act like a glue for our nice coating that we're going to put on it

And you know, y'all, I would sell every one of those stinking nuts, but I'd save out enough to make this dish or make a pecan pie

So there we go. Just going to run it through. So we got our chicken nice and coated

And remember, I told you that I had melted a stick of butter

So I'm just going to run that piece of chicken around in that butter

All right, here we go with the next piece. Now I'm going to take, just to let everybody know what this chicken is

I'm just going to toss in about a quarter of a cup of whole pecan halves

There is nothing like that nut. Love it. Mmm. All right, so in the oven, our chicken's going to go

And remember, that's 350 for an hour and 15 minutes. So now while our chicken's cooking, I want to prepare a vegetable that, gosh, brings back thoughts of my mother and her kitchen in the fall

And that's acorn squash. I think the fall might be one of my favorite seasons

It's when things start cooling down and the leaves are changing. And there's just a whole different smell in the air in autumn

So I have cut my acorn squash into scooped out the seeds Now I gonna mix two tablespoons of brown sugar two tablespoons of butter

Oh, that looks like two tablespoons right there, doesn't it? And two tablespoons of real maple syrup

And we're just going to mix those together. So we've got our ingredients

Now I'm just going to brush the inside of our acorn squash

with that butter and brown sugar and syrup. So look at that

In we go, 400 degrees for one hour. All right, there we go

And here's just two words that you'll love hearing every fall. Maybe it's three words

Pumpkin cheesecake. That's what's coming up. And later, pear fritters, y'all. Welcome back, y'all

Today's show is all about my favorite foods in the autumn time of the year

And you can see while y'all were gone, I got all this stuff strung out for my pumpkin cheesecake

But before we get started on that, we got something in the oven that's smelling awfully good

So why don't we pull that out and just see what our finished dishes look like

You know, we've got our pecan chicken in one oven. Oh, my goodness, this is so heavy

Look at that. In our other oven, we've got our acorn squash

that I bathed with butter and maple syrup and brown sugar. Oh, it's a hot oven

And look at those. They're just sizzling. I think I'm going to have to get the spatula

All right. Do you like white meat or dark meat? Dark meat, so do I

Look at that. Doesn't that look like a fabulous meal that you'd want to serve in the fall time of the year

Look at that squash, y'all, with that brown sugar. Oh. Mmm. It's so good

And let's look at our chicken. Mmm. Oh, it's delicious, y'all

The crunch of them. Pecans on top. go, buddy. Otis dearly loves chicken. Don't you, buddy? Well, come on down here, y'all

and let's get started on our pumpkin cheesecake. I have one and three-fourths a cup of graham

cracker crumbs. I'm going to add two tablespoons of light brown sugar, and I'm going to pack

that in. You know, I think I like three. So I'm going to stick in one more, and I'm going

to add a half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and I'm just going to toss these ingredients

And now I'm gonna pour in one stick of melted butter, and that butter is gonna hold our crust together for us

I love the salt and the sweet together, so I always bake with salted butter

So that's nice and moist. All right, I'm using a nine-inch springform pan, and I'm just going to dump that down into the pan

and I'm going to kind of spread it evenly around. And then I'm just going to take a flat-bottom measuring cup

and I'm going to come in there and really pack down our crust real good

Beautiful. All right. Now let's come on over here and mix up our cheesecake

You know, cheesecake is probably one of the easiest desserts that you can make

Now I'm gonna start with three eight-ounce packages of cream cheese that I let come to room temperature and I gonna beat these ingredients together All right I gonna add one 15 can of pureed pumpkin

three eggs, plus one egg yolk. I'm gonna crack them into a bowl to make sure the eggs are good

before I mix them all together. I'm going to give every one of them a quick look over

And those look great. All right, that's our three whole eggs and one yolk

About an eighth of a teaspoon of fresh ground nutmeg. I'm going to add a half a teaspoon of cinnamon, an eighth of a teaspoon of ground cloves

I'm going to toss in a fourth of a cup of sour cream. I'm going to add one and a half cups of sugar

This almost seems like diet cake, doesn't it? Just a cup and a half of sugar, that's not bad

All right. All right, I'm going to beat this up a little bit

And then I'm going to toss in a couple of tablespoons of flour

And the last thing I'm going to add is like a teaspoon of vanilla flavoring

And just that easy, we have pumpkin cheesecake. All right, so we're just going to pour this into our springform pan

And like I said, I'm using a 9-inch, y'all. Okay, so we're just going to spread that out evenly into our pan, y'all

We're going to put this in a 350-degree oven, and we're going to let it bake for one hour

And then I'm going to let it rest in the pan for 15 minutes

And then it's fair game on the cheesecake, y'all. So I'll see you back in a minute

You won't believe what I'm cooking next. Pear fritters. Okay, our cheesecake is out of the oven

and I've had it sitting on the counter for about 15 minutes

to just rest for a minute. Now I'm going to take my knife and just go around my pan

because I want to make sure that it comes out perfectly even

All right, now I'm just going to undo my springform pan, lift it very gently

I'm going to wrap this, and I'm going to put this in the refrigerator

I don't know who I'm kidding, but I'm hoping that I can let it chill for about four hours

I don't think I've ever had a cheesecake that lasted four hours, but we'll try it

Okay. So in the fridge this goes. Michael is going to adore that

He loves cheesecake. Cheesecake is probably one of his favorite desserts. Any kind of cheesecake

All right, the next thing I'm going to prepare for y'all is pear fritters

Now, I'm going to start with one cup of flour. I just want to level that off real good

All right, before I throw in my flour, I'm going to take a half a cup of milk

and one egg that's been slightly beaten into the bowl it goes

two teaspoons of sugar, one teaspoon of ground cinnamon

and I'm just going to give that a little whisk, and then I'm going to toss in our cup of self-rising flour

And that's going to make our fritter puff up. Ooh, that cinnamon is smelling so good

And it's just perfect, perfect spice for pears. All right, now I'm going to add one cup of sour cream

And stir that into our batter. And that's just like perfect. So there we go

Finish whisking our batter together and I gonna let it sit while I down here working on our pears I already gotten started on the pears and would you believe that this pear is from one of my trees I have pear trees out in my garden I love I

love fruit trees. So we're just gonna peel our pear just like this. Okay, so we're

We're just gonna cut the stem off, cut the bottom off, and then I'm gonna come in with

my apple cora. Stick it into our pear. Now I'm just gonna cut my pear rings, just like that

And then we're gonna take our rings over here, and I've got some oil that I've had heating

up right here. I'm just gonna turn up the heat a little bit

And I'm gonna just dip them down in our fritter batter and into your hot oil that's about a

fourth of an inch thick. those till they're brown and that's it

All right, so y'all don't go too far because when we come back

we've got something waiting in our refrigerator just waiting for us to wrap our lips around

You remember the cheesecake, don't you? And then we're gonna taste fritters

So I'll meet y'all back.

Hey, y'all, that's just perfect timing. Y'all are back and I'm done frying up our fritters

I've just got the last three ready to come out of the pan

You can serve them plain just like this. I've got something else in mind for my fritter

I've got some vanilla ice cream. I'm just going to put a scoop right there in the center of my fritter

I'm going to put a little cinnamon sugar. A little powdered sugar

And then I'm just going to drizzle a little bit of that maple syrup over the top

Looks pretty good, doesn't it? And you know I always tell you to eat your vegetables

So we're going to come down here. We're going to get us a little piece of fresh mint

And we're going to tuck right in there. And let's move on down here, because we've got something else waiting for us here

And look at our cheesecake, y'all. This cheesecake turned out absolutely perfect

And it's so rich, it's only gonna take just a wee little bit

and a wee little bit of whipped cream, more vegetables, and a little dust of powdered sugar

we have got two fabulous desserts that we have harvested

during this fabulous fall of the year I can't eat a pear fritter

without thinking about my grandmother Paul mmm She used to make apple and pear fritters all the time

That is so good with the ice cream. And you can almost think of it as a healthy dessert in a way, can't you

Because it's got that nice fresh pear. And it sounds good to me

And now let's go in for our pumpkin cheesecake. Mmm

You will never, ever, ever want pumpkin pie ever again. This is fabulous

I hope that y'all love these recipes, and I hope that you also know

that I always send you loving best dishes, no matter what time of year it is

from my kitchen to yours. I wish y'all were here