Marie and I eat healthy – really we do!  We’re not fanatics about it, but we watch the carbs, sugar, and salt.  We avoid the boxed meals and fix fresh foods.  The usual rote.  But once in a while we reward ourselves with something yummy.  One of my favorite yummy treats is a Turtle Pie.  This is what I ask for in place of a birthday cake.

In essence the Turtle Pie is a pecan pie with enhancements.

First, what you will need:

½ cup butter or good margarine
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup dark corn syrup
2/3 cup regular rolled oats
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ cup chopped pecans
¼ cup cashews
¼ cup chocolate chunks (dark, milk or mixture as you prefer)

Ready made pie crust OR
1-1/4 cups all purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
A rolling pin
Pastry blender

A 9” pie plate
A wire cooling rack
Aluminum foil

Second, What To Do:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Prepare the Crust

Home made crust
In a mixing bowl stir together the flour and salt.  Using a pastry blender, cut in the shortening until pieces are pea size.

Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of cold water over part of the mixture and gently toss with a fork.  Push moistened dough to the side of the bowl and repeat moistening the dough using 1 teaspoon of cold water at a time, until all the dough is moistened (4 to 5 teaspoons of water should do it).  Form dough into a ball. 

On a lightly floured surface, use your hands to slightly flatten dough.  Roll from center to the edge into a circle about 12 inches in diameter.

To transfer the pastry, roll it around the rolling pin and unroll the pastry into the pie plate.

Home made or prepared crust
Ease the crust into the pie plate, being careful not to stretch the pastry.  Trim the pastry to ½ inch beyond the edge of the pie plate. Fold under this extra pastry. Crimp edge as desired.  Do not prick the pastry.

Prepare the Filling

In a medium saucepan melt the butter or margarine. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar, corn syrup and oats.

Stir in the eggs and vanilla.

Pour mixture into the pastry.  Top with nuts and chocolate.  Cover the edge of the pie with foil to prevent over burning.

Bake in 325 degree oven for 25 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake for another 20-25 minutes or until filling is set.  Cool on a wire rack.

The house is still quiet, only the gentle crackling of the fire in the fireplace, revived from the embers of the blaze we enjoyed late into the evening as we watched Christmas movies together, and Dolly’s gentle snoring disturb the silence.  I gaze out the window at the equally still morning outside.

Small white flakes are falling gentle as goose down, swirling in the occasional soft gust.   The tops of things and roofs are just frosted with the accumulated snow flakes, not the ground, not yet.  A small thrill of excitement rises in my chest; we have not had a white Christmas since 1981, but it looks very promising this year.

We have in fact had 3 snowfalls this year, one of them pretty heavy – heavy for us; quite minor by the standards of some others – which is unusual.  We don’t normally get snowfall until mid January or February.  So the odds of enjoying a white Christmas any year where we are are slim.

To find snow on Christmas day, we must pile into our truck and head up into the higher mountains.  Chestnut and Round Mountains rarely disappoint.  But to get up and find snow falling outside our window on Christmas morning is a rare treat indeed.

Our mountain; Piney Mountain, does not have the elevation to reach up into the usual slow lines.  You see elevation makes a marked difference in whether precipitation falls as rain or now.  During out last snowfall I took this photo which shows how suddenly this change can come about.  An extra 100 feet on this mountain slope changes the topography from wet with rain to snow-covered.  It is really quite amazing, and is just one of the reasons we love living here so much.

The single flakes have begun to pair up and twirl like dancers in the air, then the pairs begin to combine as the dancers become more numerous and clusters of flake whirl and twirl; a barn dance in the air.

The snow begins to stick to the grass now… yessir, we are going to have ourselves a white Christmas for sure.

I hear stirrings of wakefulness in the other rooms now.  I lay another log on the fire and head into the kitchen to start breakfast.  It is indeed a very Merry Christmas in our home!

The next day I discovered just how easily I am amused!

Our white Christmas turned into a VERY white Christmas.  This morning I measured  5½ inches of snow laying on top of our porch sides.  That makes it the largest snow fall we can remember… and it’s still snowing!

Yes, I know… this is nothing at all to those of you with 12” or more on the ground already.  But if you think THAT is lame… read on! 

The trees are loaded down too, making a gorgeous winter wonderland of our yard, or at least it was until a bit of a wind kicked up. Then I experienced one of the most entertaining things I’ve seen in a while.

I’m sitting on the sofa, enjoying a blaze in the fireplace, sipping a mug of hot chocolate, watching out the window when a gust would wiggle the upper branches of a tree, dislodging some snow.  This would fall down onto branches below, dislodging more snow, which fell and dislodged even more, suddenly this tree would go into a “white out” condition with the snow flying all around and I could hear a “fwoop-woomp-woomp” sound as the whole batch smashed into the snow on the ground. Treevalance!!

It was wonderful!  Ah the joys of simple living!  Or maybe I should say life as a simpleton!  Laugh if you want, but I’m having a great time!

I hope your family had a great Christmas too!