It's Been 3 Years

Happy holidays!  It's already that joyous time of the year when everyone is over extended: going to too many parties/planned events, trying to get all the gifts bought/wrapped/mailed, decorating the house, while keeping up with laundry, paying property taxes, cooking, cleaning, caring for the animals, oh yea and going to work, etc., etc., etc.  I can't believe Christmas is only a few weeks away.  Good thing I've been shopping for months.  Too bad I haven't been wrapping!

The last 2 months have just FLOWN by for me, and the first thing I gave up was blogging.  But now I'm ready to get back to it.  I'm not sure how many readers I have anymore, but whoever you are, I've missed you!  I've had a very fun fall, so I will eventually recap the highlights for you.  For now, I'll talk about this past weekend:  Thanksgiving!

Joey was tired after his Thanksgiving holiday

It's been 3 years since I started this blog!  Happy anniversary to my little cyber garden.  This Thanksgiving has been really great.  We "got my parents" this year, so they were here to help celebrate and cook (well, my mom helped with the cooking and dad dog-sat the pups).  It was a perfect meal!  

Here is Todd's beautiful fresh bird.  I don't know if it was so special because it was fresh and never frozen, or all the love Todd put into the brine.  Whatever the reason, it was magic.

I'm not that big of a turkey fan but I LOVED THIS BIRD

Here is my wonderful plate of perfect food.  It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!  And Todd's gravy was the best ever.  I could drink that stuff with a straw.

The perfect plate

And then we had pie.

I can smell the goodness just looking at this picture

You all know that my Thanksgiving breakfast tradition is to bake monkey bread.  This year was no exception.  Every year I have a dilemma because my bread grows so much that I wake up to an evil monster lurking in the kitchen.  This year, I decided to outsmart the small bundt pan, and make it like the restaurants who serve it on their buffets.  In a big pan.

Before

Finally, I woke up to what I expected!  The bread had risen without a mess!  I learned that it is more difficult to cook this way.  I need to put foil over it so that it completely bakes without over-browning.  Oh well, next year will be even better!

After
You can't see all the oozy gooey goodness on the bottom of this dish, but it's there

And this is what we got to eat!

Our breakfast:  Yummy!

Our pups had a great time being SPOILED rotten by their grandparents.  They went on walks, and took naps on the couch, and got belly rubs all day and night long.  Just LOOK AT THIS!

Jessie and Joey adore their grandpa

And look at THIS!

Keystone was exhausted from all the partying

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, however you wished to celebrate!  Thanks for reading, and I'll yap with you again soon.

Day After Turkey Day

Hi there, weblings.  I've missed you!  I have many things I want to share rolling around in my head, but haven't had time to type at you.  I will try to change that soon.  Maybe.

You may have celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday (or maybe you had to work or live in a different country or don't care for the holiday).  It's the holiday I look forward to the most each year.  Let's just say that this year did not live up to my usual expectations and leave it at that, shall we?  To keep things positive, I can say the food was amazing.  The turkey was moist and juicy.  I think I actually made dressing/stuffing that tasted like my moms and I didn't mess it up!  The mashed taters and gravy were fluffy and smooth, rich, and creamy. 

My Thanksgiving plate this year.

 

We chose not to have bread.  If we had baked buns, I would have emotionally lost it.  Abby loved her daddy's homemade buns.  She knew when he was making dough.  I usually baked the buns and she knew the routine.  She couldn't stand seeing the lightly browned balls of tastiness and smelling that fresh-baked yeasty smell without having part of the first bun.  That girl certainly loved her bread.  So this year we decided that it would be too hard to make them and skipped it.  Some day, but Thursday was not the day.

I followed my usual tradition and made monkey bread.  It's always an experiment.  I might have put one or two dough balls too many, but it didn't turn out like Frankenstein, so all was good.  I even cooked it long enough for all the bread to be done.  Todd commented multiple times that it was my best one yet--success!

Maybe a TINY bit big after growing overnight.

Best Monkey Bread yet!

I baked a pecan pie.  I haven't eaten any yet because when I was draining the potatoes, I forgot my hand was there and scalded the holy Hell out of my left hand (just the end of my middle finger--I am going to live).  I just didn't feel like pie.  Well, I did, but I was so flustered with house guests that I chose to retire for the evening vs. endure another minute in their presence.  It was worth giving up pie.

Oh wait, I was keeping it positive. So here is a picture of my pretty pie. 

My pecan pie was sort of decorative this year

I can't wait to bake one for Tullybird.  She has already put in an order for one when she visits in May.  Seriously, do y'all know how easy this pie is to make?  Oh wait, it's really, really difficult!  All that waiting while it bakes is torture.  If you ever want to visit and have some pie, just let me know and I'll bake you one too!

Speaking of pecan pie, let me tell you a couple of stories about good family.  See how I'm keeping this positive?  When I was growing up, I vacillated between my love for apple pie and my love for pecan pie.  If it was my Aunt Carol's apple pie, I would probably go for that especially if vanilla ice cream was available.  But I also went for the pecan pie just as often. 

My great grandfather loved pecan pie too.  As a matter of fact, we used to call ourselves pecan pie buddies.  At family reunions, we knew which pie we were sharing.  One time my mom dropped me off at his house so that I could bake him a pecan pie.  I thought the directions HAD to be wrong.  What pie on earth cooks for SIXTY minutes?!  That's an hour of cooking time!  That was long ago... way before the Internet and cell phones.  So we used our best judgement and pulled it out after about 40 minutes.  Our pie was a little soupy, but we didn't care.  It tasted great and we thought it was the best ever.

I had a school assignment in grade school, back in the day when you could use a tape recorder with cassette tapes.  I had to find someone old and interview them--hey, my pecan pie buddy!  I remember trying to think of questions to ask before I went over there.  I don't remember the conversation, except one part.  He was born in the early 1900's.  Like 1901 or 1904, give or take a year or two because I can't remember.  When he was a boy, he wore the kind of shoes that had buckles.  It was fun to think of him as a young boy with buckles on his shoes.

So there you go.  I said that I would share a couple of stories about good family, not necessarily good stories about family!  I have fond memories of going over to my great grandfather's house.  I can still remember how that house smelled in my mind.  Smells are very strong for me--it can take me back to a moment faster than any other sense.

This is my third Thanksgiving since I started my blog.  I had no idea I would enjoy it this much.  It's something I know I can always use to share my thoughts and craft ideas or to document a milestone or something great I ate.  Or to bitch and moan.  I may be back very soon to do one of these things.

It's A Brave New World

Welcome to my blog! I'm finally here, I know, I know, better late than never. I thought today, my very favorite holiday of all, would be the best time to adventure into my new world.


HAPPY THANKSGIVING everyone! When I think of Thanksgiving, I remember car rides to NE to visit my closest cousin, playing in the snow, eating my aunt's apple pie (to die for), and being with family. Those memories along with my current traditions are why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all.


Our top holiday tradition is that on Thanksgiving and Christmas. We DO NOT Travel. At. All. We decided early in our lives to stay home and enjoy the time instead of trying to decide which side of the family tree to make happy and which to neglect. So we make ourselves happy, and enjoy much less stress. Now my stress is, how big is my Monkey Bread going to grow?

2008 was the year I perfected Monkey Bread (prior to baking):

2009 was even BETTER (after baking):

And 2010 has been

THE BEST EVER MONKEY BREAD OF ALL TIME:

My secret this year: +walnuts. AND what made it PERFECT was that I used homemade frozen dough balls. Damn, my hubby makes the best bun dough.

For your amusement, 2007 won the Most Deformed Monkey Bread title:

Happy Turkey Day!