Jen's Famous Pumpkin Pie Bars

Eric does not bake. Lets review that one, Eric, the husband half of this blog grills, cooks on the stove top, prepares sandwiches, slices, dices, chops and stirs. He does not put things in the oven and expect them to come out any way except burned on the outside and raw on the inside. Its no wonder then that Charisse was more than a little concerned when he decided he would handle making Jen's Famous Pumpkin Pie Bars for the family that came out from Arkansas over New Years. Thats right, a house full of family and friends and ERIC is going to bake something. There were some quivering boots around wondering just how toxic this would be. Fortunately after an hour and a half, once everyone had scarfed down the taco bar we made and Eric chased Charisse and Jen out of the kitchen with a wooden spoon at least twice the pumpkin pie bars were served. Thankfully nobody died. Not only did nobody die they didn't leave any left, which is always a good sign. This is actually always the case with  these things. We've mentioned them before but haven't had the chance to show them to you all. This is most certainly one of the best tasting fall / winter desserts ever. The base is just basic yellow cake, the middle is a delicious pumpkin pie filling and its topped with a crispy sugar and cinnamon crunch. This really is an amazing dessert, it tastes great and its easy to make so its perfect for pot lucks, large get togethers or just you.

Pumpkin Chess Pie With Praline Sauce

Who takes whipped cream on their pumpkin pie? Everyone in the whole world should be jumping up and down and shouting "I do! I do!" because thats just how pumpkin pie is made. Yup it is basically a scientific fact that every slice of pumpkin pie is naturally grown with whipped cream on top, and apparently pies grown closer local college towns carry a bit of a kick. Okay, so maybe that last part is simply on our "to do some day" list, just for fun =P. With whipped cream being such a staple of the good old American pumpkin pie, imagine everyones shock when we put away the can and poured on a sauce! There were horrified glances around the table, whimpers of fear and the occasional look of sheer terror from our guests that night. What was this strange sauce? How dare they not have any cans of whipped cream in the house! The table was on the verge of mutiny! Or we're exaggerating a little bit. Here's what actually happened: everyone just scarfed down the whole pie in about 2 minutes and asked for more. Eric is a stickler for having whipped cream on his pie, but sometimes the old switch-a-roo comes out better than the original. The praline sauce was a huge hit and changed the way we're looking at pie. Its like putting icing on a cake, if you've only ever had cake, you wouldn't know what your missing, but if you add the best icing ever, it becomes that much more amazing and you never want to have it any other way. As someone at the table mentioned, "Marie Calanders, eat your heart out".

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, with lots of food and family and hopefully too much food and family. We also hope that enough of you survived Back Friday that we still have readers!