The Help Recipes - Cheesecake Pecan Pie

The Help Recipes

Southern Flavour! Try these favourite recipes from Lee Ann Flemming, renowned Southern chef and food stylist on this years blockbuster movie, The Help.

Spinach-Stuffed Squash

Spinach Stuffing:
½ cup chopped onion
½ cup butter
2 (10 oz.) packages frozen
chopped spinach,
cooked and drained
1 tsp. salt
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp. red wine vinegar
Bread crumbs (garnish)

Squash:
4 yellow crookneck squash
Melted butter
Salt and pepper
Grated parmesan cheese

Directions:
1. Cook whole squash in boiling, salted water for about 10 minutes until tender.
2. Very carefully cut into halves and scoop out the seeds.
3. Sprinkle each shell with butter, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese.

Spinach Stuffing:
1. Sauté onions in butter until tender.
2. Add spinach, salt, sour cream and vinegar, then blend well.
3. Stuff each squash shell with spinach mixture.
4. Sprinkle each with additional parmesan cheese and bread crumbs.
5. Dot with butter.
6. Bake at 180°C for 15 minutes or until thoroughly heated to serve.

Cheesecake Pecan Pie

Homemade Pie Crust

Ingredients:
1¼ cups plain flour
¼ tsp salt
1/3 cup shortening (butter flavour shortening is great, too)
4 - 5 tbsp cold ice water

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl stir flour and salt together.
2. Using a pastry blender, cut in shortening until pieces are pea-size.
3. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of water over part of the flour mixture; gently toss with a fork.
4. Push moistened dough to the side of the bowl. Repeat using 1 tbsp of water at a time, until all the flour mixture is moistened.
5. Form dough into a ball; wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
6. On a lightly floured surface, use your hands to slightly flatten dough. Roll dough from centre to edges into a circle about 12 inches in diameter.
7. To transfer pastry, wrap it around the rolling pin.
8. Unroll pastry into a 9-inch pie plate. Ease pastry into pie plate without stretching it.
9. Trim pastry to 1/2 inch beyond edge of pie plate. Fold under extra pastry. Crimp edges as desired.


Cheesecake Pecan Pie

Ingredients:
1 (15 oz) pkg refrigerated piecrusts
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese
4 large eggs, divided
¾ cup sugar, divided
2 tsp vanilla, divided
¼ tsp salt
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup light corn syrup

Directions:
1. Unfold and stack 2 piecrusts together. Gently roll or press together and fit into a 9-inch pie plate according to directions; fold edges under and crimp.
Note: For a more homemade flavour, try Lee Anns Homemade Pie Crust recipe (featured left).
2. Beat cream cheese, 1 egg, ½ cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and salt at medium speed with a mixer until smooth.
3. Pour into piecrust and sprinkle with pecans.
4. Stir together corn syrup, 3 eggs, remaining ¼ cup sugar, and remaining 1 tsp vanilla and pour mixture over pecans.
5. Bake at 180°C for 50-55 minutes until set.

Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients:
3 cups cooked, mashed
sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
½ cup melted butter
2 eggs beaten
1 tbsp vanilla
½ cup raisins (optional)

Directions:
Mix together and pour into a buttered casserole dish.

Ingredients: Topping
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup melted butter

Directions:
1. Mix topping with fork and sprinkle crumbs on top of casserole.
2. Bake at 180°C for 30 minutes.

Mamaws Homemade Rolls

Ingredients:
1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup boiling water
2 eggs
2 pkg dry yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
6 cups sifted plain flour

Directions:
1. Soak yeast in the lukewarm water.
2. Pour boiling water over the shortening, sugar and salt. Allow this mixture to cool to lukewarm.
3. Add yeast to this mixture.
4. Add eggs and flour. Stir and mix well.
5. Cover and store in the refrigerator overnight (or at least 3-4 hours).
Note: The mixture will keep for a week in the refrigerator.
6. Remove the portion you wish to use and knead on a floured board.
7. Roll thin and cut with a biscuit cutter.
8. Dip half in melted butter and fold over for pocket rolls. Place in a greased pan and allow to rise 2-3 hours.
9. Bake at 220°C for 12-15 minutes.
This recipe can easily be cut in half.

Mrs. Walters Fruit Salad

Ingredients:
1 can mandarin oranges, drained
1 can pineapple chunks, drained
1 can flaked coconut
1 small jar red Maraschino cherries, drained
1 (8 oz) carton sour cream

Directions:
1. Mix and refrigerate. Note: Save the drained juice from oranges and pineapples. Add to orange juice to enhance your morning beverage.



Noted Southern chef,Lee Ann Flemmingserved as a foodstylist for The Help.In addition to hercookbook, Recipes andRemembrances,Lee Ann writes a weeklynewspaper article forthe Sunday editionof the GreenwoodCommonwealth!

The Help

Cast: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer
Director: Tate Taylor
Genre: Drama

This inspirational, Courageous and Empowering Story

DreamWorks Pictures The Help, based on the #1 New York Times bestseller by Kathryn Stockett, Golden Globe Award winner and four times Academy Award nominee, including Best Picture, will be available on Blu-ray, DVD February 8, 2012.

This inspirational and deeply moving story comes to vivid life through the compelling performances of a phenomenal ensemble cast including Emma Stone, Viola Davis (Oscar Best Actress nominee), Octavia Spencer (Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress winner and Oscar Best Supporting Actress nominee), Bryce Dallas Howard and Jessica Chastain (Oscar Best Supporting Actress nominee). The Help is a courageous and empowering story about very different and extraordinary women in the 1960s South who build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project.

The Help Blu-ray provides audiences with the chance to delve deeper into the movie through compelling, never-before-seen bonus features, including "The Making of 'The Help' From Friendship To Film," an intimate look at how the life-changing experiences of close-knit childhood friends director Tate Taylor and novelist Kathryn Stockett led to the creation of the best-selling novel and its transition to the big screen.

Additional bonus includes "In Their Own Words: A Tribute To the Maids Of Mississippi," which is an honest observation of life in the South from real-life maids, including director Tate Taylor's childhood caretaker, Carol Lee; deleted scenes; and nine-time Grammy Award-winning and multi-platinum selling singer/songwriter, Mary J. Blige's "The Living Proof", music video from the film's end titles.

The Help has been packaged as follows:

1 Disc Blu-ray Pack - RRP $49.95

Exclusive Blu-ray Bonus Features:
- The Making of "The Help"¨ From Friendship To Film
- In Their Own Words: A Tribute To The Maids Of Mississippi
- Three deleted scenes with introductions by Director Tate Taylor, including 'Humiliated', 'A Book About Jackson' and 'Johnny's Home' (which is a Blu-ray exclusive)
- "The Living Proof" music video by Mary J. Blige


1-Disc DVD - RRP $39.95

Bonus Features:
- Two deleted scenes with introductions by Director Tate Taylor, including 'A Senator's Son' and 'Keep On Walkin'
- "The Living Proof" music video by Mary J. Blige


About The Film & Cast:
The Help is an inspirational, courageous and empowering story about very different, extraordinary women in the 1960s South who build an unlikely friendship around a secret writing project - one that breakssociety's rules and puts them all at risk. Filled with poignancy, humor and hope - and complete withcompelling, never-before-seen bonus features - The Help is a timeless, universal and triumphant storyabout the ability to create change.

The Help stars Emma Stone as the courageous Eugenia 'Skeeter' Phelan, who goes against the beliefs ofher family and friends to find her own voice. The critically praised, emotional performance of Viola Davisas Aibileen Clark, a woman who secretly dreams of one day having more than she has been given, offersa deep emotional storyline. The breakthrough performance of Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson, whosesass and tough exterior disguise the pain and fear she faces every day, brings both drama and humor tothe film. Bryce Dallas Howard breathes life into the catty Jackson socialite Hilly Holbrook and JessicaChastain brings charm and humor as Celia Foote, a kind housewife living outside of town who longs to fitin. Sissy Spacek, Allison Janney and Ahna O'Reilly also provide vivacious performances that round outthis all-star female ensemble.

About The Filmmaker:
The Help is directed by Tate Taylor and co-produced by Michael Barnathan (Percy Jackson & TheOlympians: The Lightning Thief, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian), Chris Columbus (PercyJackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Night at the Museum franchise, Harry Potter 1, 2, 3),Brunson Green (Fool's Gold) and Tate Taylor. The screenplay for The Help is written by Tate Taylor andis based on the best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett."THE HELP IS AN EXHILARATING GIFT" - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

"Davis and Spencer are both brilliant" - Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly



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The Help Cleaning Tips - www.femail.com.au/the-help-dvd.htm