Because I sure did! We had Thanksgiving brunch and dinner at my Aunt and Uncle's place in Redondo Beach, and then we headed down to his Aunt and Uncle's place in San Diego for the rest of the weekend.
My Aunt Jeanne set a beautiful table for our meals. Gourds, pumpkins, nuts, berries and candles.
Uncle Jim headed up the cooking (with a couple of people assisting), with this beautifully brined turkey as the main. The starter was butternut squash soup with creme fraiche and olive oil on top. For sides, we had two kinds of stuffing, brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce
My Aunt Peggy was the mastermind behind the pies. Pecan, pumpkin and apple. We used Trader Joe's frozen pie crust for all of these. It's fantastic and we all heartily recommend them. There's already so much going on in the kitchen on Thanksgiving, so a pre-made crust makes things a bit less hectic.
We used another crust to make the leaf decorations. My Aunt Peggy and I just cut the pieces out by hand and placed them on the finished pie after they had been baked off. We had minor supervision on placement from the engineer who was present, something about equally covering the whole thing. But then, I informed him of the importance of negative space in a composition and the leaf placement was decided upon.
Apple pie is the hubs' favorite dessert, but I hate it so I've never made one for him. Well, I helped a lot on this pie, so we'll just say that I've finally made an apple pie for him. Tip for apple pies: we doubled the crumb topping recipe for this pie. Who doesn't love extra crumble?
To use up the the leftover pie pastry, we brushed on melted butter and sprinkled on cinnamon and sugar (you need more than you think). Then we cut it into strips before twisting, braiding and rolling them up. Simply bake them off at about 400 degrees until they brown.
So, that was our meal, and it was fantastic. On Friday we headed down to San Diego to visit T's family. We had a lot of fun relaxing, hanging out and eating more. The highlights were a hike at Torrey Pines with T's cousin.
And a walk around the Balboa Park with T's Aunt. There's so much to see. Some of it's free, but you can also buy a day pass for entry into all of the museums. You could bring a picnic lunch and make a whole day of it.
My Aunt Jeanne set a beautiful table for our meals. Gourds, pumpkins, nuts, berries and candles.
Uncle Jim headed up the cooking (with a couple of people assisting), with this beautifully brined turkey as the main. The starter was butternut squash soup with creme fraiche and olive oil on top. For sides, we had two kinds of stuffing, brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce
My Aunt Peggy was the mastermind behind the pies. Pecan, pumpkin and apple. We used Trader Joe's frozen pie crust for all of these. It's fantastic and we all heartily recommend them. There's already so much going on in the kitchen on Thanksgiving, so a pre-made crust makes things a bit less hectic.
We used another crust to make the leaf decorations. My Aunt Peggy and I just cut the pieces out by hand and placed them on the finished pie after they had been baked off. We had minor supervision on placement from the engineer who was present, something about equally covering the whole thing. But then, I informed him of the importance of negative space in a composition and the leaf placement was decided upon.
Apple pie is the hubs' favorite dessert, but I hate it so I've never made one for him. Well, I helped a lot on this pie, so we'll just say that I've finally made an apple pie for him. Tip for apple pies: we doubled the crumb topping recipe for this pie. Who doesn't love extra crumble?
To use up the the leftover pie pastry, we brushed on melted butter and sprinkled on cinnamon and sugar (you need more than you think). Then we cut it into strips before twisting, braiding and rolling them up. Simply bake them off at about 400 degrees until they brown.
So, that was our meal, and it was fantastic. On Friday we headed down to San Diego to visit T's family. We had a lot of fun relaxing, hanging out and eating more. The highlights were a hike at Torrey Pines with T's cousin.
And a walk around the Balboa Park with T's Aunt. There's so much to see. Some of it's free, but you can also buy a day pass for entry into all of the museums. You could bring a picnic lunch and make a whole day of it.
2 comments:
True genius, the pumpkin pie is.
That apple pie looks amazing! Sounds like a great meal and makes me wish I was still working in Flight Test and had to go down to Southern CA that weekend...
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