Thanksgiving Menu

We're celebrating our first Thanksgiving in our new home in style!  We cooked up a feast this morning.  Sarah helped.  My kitchen is big enough to hold three active cooks.  I still find it hard to believe that we actually live here, and will, probably forever, and that we are blessed with such a lovely space, inside and out.

After all the cooking and baking, we were invited next door to visit, share a drink, and play croquet.  Sarah came in second!  Our amazing neighbors are another unexpected blessing living here.

We had an early meal at home, just our family, but there was enough food for 30.  I'll try to remedy that next year and fill our home with friends and family.

From left to right there is pumpkin pie, pickles, maple pineapple ham, venison, cranberry sauce, pineapple, baked beans, my Grandma's four bean salad, pickled beets, maple drizzled brussel sprouts, and baked sweet potatoes.

We'll close our day at a friend's home 'round the fire.  The bacon wrapped dates are long gone, but hopefully our bean salad, brussel sprouts, pie, spiced cider and wine will suffice.

Leah's Pumpkin Pie

Leah made the most delicious pumpkin pie last week, and I could eat it!  Let me repeat myself.  My almost 8 year old daughter was yet again baking, (a magic she inherited from her aunt, not me) and made a pumpkin pie that I can eat.

A little background:  I've never had pumpkin pie before.  I don't know what it is supposed to taste like, but this was finger licking, pan licking good!  I married a man who happens to really like pumpkin pie.  On our first Thanksgiving as a married couple I made a pumpkin pie.  I found a recipe that was gluten, dairy, and egg free.  It had tofu in it.  We literally gagged on it and could not scrape it into the garbage fast enough.  If I recall correctly,  even the dog would not touch it.  I vowed that no matter how much I loved my husband, I would not attempt to make another pumpkin pie for him.  I faithfully kept that vow for 13 years.  I plan to break it on Thursday, and see if can replicate Leah's delectable desert.

Here is her recipe.

In case you are not well versed in phonetic spelling:
3 c. pumpkin
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tb. maple syrup
1 pinch pumpkin pie spice
Bake for 45 min. at 425 degrees.

She used this for her crust:
8 oz. rice flour
1/2 c. oil
1/8 c. water
1/4 tsp. salt
Add water last.  Roll between wax paper.

Happy baking and Happy Thanksgiving!!

In a nutshell

I posted this on Facebook this evening.  It is a piece of our conversation at the dinner table.  I later realized that in those 30 hilarious seconds, when we somehow managed to get from hot pork loin to the Golden ratio, you could see exactly who we are and what is most prominent on our minds at almost any given moment.

A: It's hot!
me: Take little bites. Big bites are hot. Little bites are not.
L: I get it! That's why some big people are hot, and little people are not. O.o
S: That's a different meaning of hot, like when you like someone.
me: It can be used as a slang term when you think someone looks nice. I like how Daddy looks, so I will say that he's hot.
D: If your ratio was 1.62, the ancient Greeks would think you were hot Mom.


This means that Anna is trying to get as much meat as possible into her mouth, as quickly as she can.  This is what she cares most about - eating.  That and playing, but at 7 pm, it was all about the meat.
I'm mothering.
Leah is making grand connections and thinks and says the darnedest things, that are usually quite clever.
Sarah is of course making sure that everyone and everything is *right*.
Now I'm teaching and thinking about my hot husband, who doesn't get home until 11 pm on Thursdays.)
David is absorbed in math and history, with a side of humor.

Yep.  That's us in a nutshell.