Thanksgiving - Take One

Jeff gets Thanksgiving off of work, but Vivian still has school.  We're also twelve hours ahead of the U.S., so the Macy's parade hasn't happened yet, and neither has football.  Last year we decided it was better to do the big celebration on Saturday, but that made Thanksgiving itself sort of sad, so this year I decided to do a pseudo- Thanksgiving dinner before our big Saturday celebration.  I made roast chicken instead of turkey, with stove top dressing and brown gravy, plus the requisite two kinds of cranberry sauce.  I even broke out the nice, china plates.  The finished result looked fancy and made us all happy.

Jeff decided that the chicken needed its own close up.

The one thing I could not compromise on though was the pumpkin pie, which is Jeff and Vivian's favorite part of Thanksgiving.  Vivian started her Thanksgiving morning singing, "Pumpkin pie! Pumpkin, pumpkin pie!"  Elena thought this was great, and "sang" along by randomly yelling out "Unkin!" and "Ie!"  So that was the start of my Thanksgiving day.  I had also made sausage balls the day before, so that they were ready to be enjoyed for a parade-less Thanksgiving morning.  The ones on the left are "spicy" with jalapeno jack, while the ones on the right are just regular cheddar.

After fueling up on sausage balls, I was ready to start my big morning project, my first, from scratch, pumpkin pie.  Thank goodness for technology.  I called my mom a couple times to check on crust recommendations (cooked or uncooked), and then I called and actually put the camera on, so that she could help me decide if my pie was done.  

The pie cooking got off to a bit of a dramatic start, because, even though my mom had warned me, I spilled a little of the filling into the oven.  My friend, who was over for a play date, helpfully tried to clean it up, but she got a little too close to the burner, and the napkin she was using burst into flames, which I beat out with my oven mitt.  She put the rest of the flaming napkin in the sink, and the drama was done.  It somehow seems fitting that my first pumpkin pie attempt had a little fire to it, kind of like a rite of passage.  Hopefully, it will be my only Thanksgiving related fire.

Even though it took the pie about an hour to fully cook, the filling turned out great.  The crust had a slight malfunction though, because, in the area where the filling had spilled over, it stuck to the protective aluminum foil, and came off with the foil.  Still, it looked good.

And with home made whipped cream, it tasted fabulous!

For extra fun, we served it on my grandmother's bird plates (for my bird loving pumpkin pie eaters!), and Jeff broke out some fancy port.  It was fun to do a special meal, and it wasn't too hard.  Maybe next year I'll even step up my game and make more things from scratch.  Maybe even try cooking a small turkey, who knows?  Living far from home can be tough, but it feels good to embrace the challenge and make something special out of it.