I have to admit, whenever I hear the words “pecan pie” I immediately think of the line “But I would be proud to partake of your pecan piiiiiiiiie…” from that sweet museum scene in When Harry Met Sally, when Harry is gearing up to ask Sally out:

It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years since that movie first came out! It’s still one of my all-time favorites. Anyhow, I digress…back to the pie.

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November is here! And that means holiday cooking and baking season has officially begun on Cooking On the Side. From Libby’s Pumpkin Pie (today’s recipe) to French’s Green Bean Casserole, many favorite holiday recipes originated from food packaging – which makes them perfect topics for this blog! So for the next few weeks I’ll be preparing familiar, traditional Thanksgiving recipes “from the side”.

For me, it’s just not Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie…

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FINALLY, the temperature dipped below 75 degrees in San Diego. I can officially start autumn cooking!

At one time I had great intentions of becoming an avid pie baker. I even took a 3-hour pie-baking class…actually it was more of a pie-eating class, with generous “samples” of each of the six pies the teacher made. It was incredible! As much fun as she seemed to be having in rolling out the perfect flaky crust and weaving the most beautiful lattice, I realized that the eating part was where my true passion lay.

So it was without any guilt or reticence that I leveraged ready-made refrigerated crusts to help make prepping this scrumptious pie easy as…well, you know.

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