Bite Of MN: Oatmeal Pecan Pie

I hope you had wonderful Thanksgiving celebrations. Mine was great and of course, got me quite stuffed. My mom made our family favorite of green beans and bacon and my sister-in-law made a yummy green bean casserole. Good thing I love green beans! The candied sweet potato casserole turned out well and I posted the results over here.

Right before Thanksgiving, Cooking Light magazine tweeted:

"A regular slice of pecan pie can rake up 401 calories; ours comes in at 288 calories! You do the math!"

I'm not really familiar with pecan pie, only having it once in my life, but I remembered that I liked it. Since I only had one thing to make for Thanksgiving, I was itching to make more and just happened to have the ingredients for the lower-calorie pecan pie.

I also decided to make my own pie crust using Saveur's perfect pie crust recipe. I am happy to say it was easy to do, but feel free to use a store-bought crust to save some time.

Using toasted thick oats and a mix of whole pecans and pieces gave the pie filling a great texture. I only had light brown sugar and used that instead of dark brown sugar and the pie was still amazing! I gave a slice to my mom, who loves pecans and to my sister, Amy, because it was her birthday, but otherwise kept the rest at home to enjoy.

If you want to make a wonderful pie that is lighter on the waistline, go watch the short video here for a short tutorial and then go to the recipe here and get cooking!

Crystal Grobe writes the Bite of Minnesota blog as well as Cafe Cyan.