Tradition

I have noticed that after awhile most everyone who keeps a blog slows down on their blogging, so it's no surprise to me that I haven't gotten around to putting something on here for quite some time.  When that realization hits, or when someone who actually reads your blog comments wondering why you haven't posted, it's time for one of those catch up posts.  So here goes...

I have said before that Thanksgiving is my very favorite holiday.  It's my mom's fault because when we were growing up she always made it so special.  That is when relatives, who we hardly ever saw, would venture to Utah.  Mom loved to cook and this was her chance to do it all.  Our menu was the same every single year-turkey, stuffing, yams with marshmallows on top, potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls, cranberry sauce, Jello salad, stuffed celery, olives, and pumpkin pie with real whipped cream.  The table was always fancy with our china, and we dressed up for dinner.  Over the years we have tweaked things just a little, but for the most part have pretty much stuck to her menu.  But I am a little embarrassed to say our rolls have not always been homemade and I am guilty of using the Marie Callender pie crust, but other than that we've pretty much done it right.

After last Thanksgiving, when we totally broke tradition, I decided that this year we were going to do Thanksgiving the way you are supposed to.  No Rhodes rolls or grocery store pie crusts at our house.  I knew I could do this because Heather would be here to help and it's a lot of fun spending time with her in the kitchen. We made everything from scratch, even the cranberry sauce, which I'd never done before.

Can I just say traditional pumpkin pie has never been my favorite because the moist texture kind of freaks me out.  So over the years I have made chiffon pumpkin pie, pumpkin delight, or some other pumpkin concoction instead, but since I wanted to do Thanksgiving right knew this year it had to be a real homemade pumpkin pie. To build up our confidence for all this Heather and I went to a pie making demo at Sur La Table the Saturday before.  They taught us some tricks for making a perfect pie crust and a brilliant idea for making pumpkin pie on a quarter sheet pan.  Their recipe and cooking it on a quarter sheet made the texture so much better and the pieces able to be cut in smaller pieces, so we decided we'd give that a try. 

The one tradition we have incorporated that mom was never a part of is having pie the night before Thanksgiving.  We have done this the past few years and I think is the greatest idea ever.  Like most families you need many different pies besides pumpkin on the Thanksgiving menu, and the crunchy caramel apple pie I make is the favorite at our house.  So the night before Thanksgiving we gorged ourselves on apple pie and ice cream and saved the pumpkin for Thanksgiving when everyone is too full for pie, but eats it out of obligation. 

All in all is was a wonderful holiday.  Of course the best part was having our little family together.

I plan to blog soon about some other things we've been up to.