Don’t worry. I was only joking. We only kept one chocolate bar (thank you Jon and Leah!) and we only kept half the tea. And we only kept half the tea because Dad didn’t have room for all of it in his bags. I’ll bring you the rest of it, Meggan, when I come in April. (Will you allow me to drink a bag or two of it here or there?)
It sure was tempting to keep all that chocolate though!!
In honor of Ellie’s obsession with squirrels, I decorated our Thanksgiving apple pie with a squirrel.
The poor little guy shrunk a little during the baking process. That’s his head on the left and the tail on the right.
And wowee, was that pie good! I used the Smitten Kitchen pie recipe, which she adapted from Cooks’ Illustrated. I took her advice and eliminated the lemon and doubled all the spices (actually I quadrupled the nutmeg and used fresh-grated). I also used a variety of different apples, rather than just Granny Smith and Macintosh as the directions called for.
It was probably the best apple pie I’ve ever eaten. It’s gone but thankfully, we still have a baby one in the fridge!
That’s a half-pint jar (the short fat kind, not the taller, skinny kind). I used my leftover pie crust and filling and made us this absolutely adorable pie for later. It’s waiting in the freezer but I don’t think it will be there that long!
Ellie LOVES squirrels. She loves them so much that the very mention of the word, “squirrel,” is enough to distract her from crying over a [forbidden] object or a little hurt.
**Cue the dogs from Up.**
Anyway, we rarely actually see squirrels when we are looking for them. But this time, not only did we see a squirrel but he stayed a long time and looked right back at us! Grandpa very kindly held Ellie up at the window for a long time.
See the squirrel in focus on this one?
My dad is in the air as we speak, on his way back to Alaska. It was wonderful having him with us, and especially nice to be able to spend Thanksgiving with him. I haven’t been with my family for Thanksgiving since 2006 and I really enjoyed having him with us!
We also are enjoying the seven pounds of dark chocolate that he brought back from England for us. It’s going to take forever for us to eat all that chocolate.
And the 1600 bags of PG Tips? Jon and Leah – that was so nice of you to send those for us! We don’t even drink tea that often so we were really surprised that you sent it to us and not Eric and Meggan (those insatiable tea drinkers).
Ellie’s thrilled too, as you can tell.
Ellie even took her socks off in gratitude!
She actually takes off her socks almost as soon as we put them on her. And don’t worry – I know the shoe trick but she takes off her shoes too. Oh well. If she wants to have cold feet, that’s her problem, not mine.
We’ll miss you Grandpa! Thanks for the tea!
Today we are grateful for oh so many things; but in the spirit of the most important thing on Thanksgiving Day, we want to give thanks to the many people who have made our Thanksgiving meal possible.
Thank you to:
Ivan, the miller who ground our flour;
Henry, the farmer who raised our turkey, the chickens who laid our eggs, and the cows who provided our milk;
Earl, who raised our brussels sprouts and thyme;
Ed, who raised our pumpkin (for the pie which we actually already ate with Nik’s family on Saturday and Tuesday night);
the farmer at Black Rock Orchard who grew our apples;
the farmer at South Mountain Creamery, who raised the cows who provided our cream;
and to the many other farmers who, although they may run gigantic commercials farms and are therefore anonymous (for our cranberries for example), still deserve our thanks and appreciation.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Hi! I’m popping in to say that I’ve been sewing like a maniac and that’s why I’ve been so quiet. I’ve been writing lots of blog posts in my head, taking lots of pictures to show you, and not actually getting any of it on here to show you.
Here’s some of what I’ve been working on:
Any guesses as to what they are? Their identity won’t be revealed until Christmas! (And friends who actually know, please don’t comment and ruin the surprise!)
Dad is back with us, after a great trip to England. So I’ll probably be away again until next week.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Birthday Drew!
Thanks for giving Nik such a fabulous flight this summer!
That’s a maitake, or hen-in-the-woods, mushroom. We have an incredibly knowledgeable (and generous) friend who forages for mushrooms. This fall was particularly productive and she had more than she needed. So we were more than glad to take this one off her hands.
That’s a 12-inch saute pan and yes, the whole thing is filled up with only one mushroom.
Taking Michelle’s advice, I coarsely chopped the whole thing, sauteed it in a dry pan, and then added olive oil, garlic, and salt. It’s amazingly delicious – different than any other mushroom I’ve ever had. We have tons of it left, in the freezer, awaiting quiche, and quinoa pilaf and all sorts of other amazing dishes.
And proof that it was indeed bigger than Ellie’s head.
My little cutie pie, with more and more personality as every day goes by
Salmon and Souvlaki 