Whoa that was supposed to be a smiley face in the title, not bad words, sorry!

oh my what an exciting start to the holiday !! have fun and keep us posted !!

Whoa! I am sure you are thankful you didn't have to post 'we have no water for Thanksgiving'! Scary thought! Glad it is working out. There is order in chaos you know.

Yikes.....hoping all is calm from here on out.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ours has been uneventful....dinner came out very nice, if I do say so myself!

I did an 11 lb turkey, dressing made from various ends of bread and cornbread I have been throwing in a ziplock, sweet potatoes that I roasted, mixed with a little butter and brown sugar, topped with marshmallows, fresh asparagus, and my favorite cranberry sauce. This was topped off by a brown sugar chess pie, which I had never made before, but was fabulous, and EZ!

This holiday I am thankful for propane and oil lamps. The power went out yesterday at 2, flickered back on briefly at 4, then went out for good. Fortunately, we have a propane cooktop, fireplace, and outside grill, plus plenty of oil lamps and candles. Unfortunately, we also have a well, and no power means no water.

We only had two guests, both family, so no chagrin, and they got into the spirit of the situation.

We cooked the turkey, sweet potatoes, and dressing the old-fashioned open-fire way. Everything else was already cooked or crossed off the menu. With no TV or computers we actually sat around talking to each other by the light of the candles instead of rushing to the football game or internet. It was kind of fun, in a way, but not something I'd really care to repeat -- kind of like spending the night on the floor of Boston Logan airport several years ago during a similar snowstorm.

The power is still out and I am now at McDonald's recharging my cell phone (canNOT live without that -- home phone is down, too) and talking about renting a hotel room just so we can have a hot shower -- or a shower of any kind.

And I made pumpkin cheesecake too -- before the power went out, fortunately. It didn't rise and did crack, but I'm told it was the best ever.

Wow! What a good attitude, kwsl. Was wine involved? LOL.

We had Thanksgiving yesterday so DN could travel out of state today. I burned the Brussels sprouts, for which most of the guests were thankful (I didn't know we had so many Brussels sprouts haters!). Every thing else came out great.

For the first time ever, I made a pumpkin cheesecake. From the thread on pumpkin cheese cakes in the Cooking Forum, I chose 3 different elements: the gingersnap pecan crust, the Cooks Illustrated cheesecake, and the Bourbon Pecan Glaze. I was only a tiny bit disappointed in the glaze. It was more of a sauce than a glaze. I define glaze as thin but viscous. This was thin but not viscous. Tasted fine, and I just called it Bourbon Pecan Sauce and no one was wiser.

My cheesecake cracked slightly on one side, the side that was also cooking faster than the rest of the cheesecake. See Rant about crummy GE Cafe range on the Cooking Forum.

Kswl, I had to laugh at your delightful, descriptive post. Loved the "small explosion of laundry". These are the Thanksgivings that are talked about for years! You too, Chibimimi. Lots to laugh about... Later!

I went to my Mom's. I contributed a few sides but wanted to do something else special so I made some Apple Cinnamon Bread loaves for people to take home with them after the day was over. I wrapped them in saran wrap and was going to tie them with some colorful hemp with cinnamon sticks tied on. It looked great on Pinterest. Mine looked like ugly sticks.

No problem, I can adapt. I painted some parchment paper a pretty shade of red with a diagonal white crisscross. I wrapped it around the saran wrap on the loaves and then put the cinnamon sticks on top. They still looked like dead sticks! Sigh

So I sliced some apples really thin on the mandolin, sprinkled them with a little cinnamon and baked them till crisp. They looked lovely, I put a row down each loaf and with the edges all curly, the star in the middle, and the pretty color on top of the red parchment paper. I was finally happy with the bread gifts. But I was now having fun making apple slices. They were pretty tasty.

So I sliced up a couple more apples to bake with the thought that we could snack on them. But I accidentally put too much sugar in with the cinnamon and instead of being lightly cinnamon flavored apples, they were crispy caramelized apple slices (thin as chips). They turned out to be yummy! They are already on the list for our annual Christmas Eve get-together!

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

What a Thanksgiving! dS2 left today to drive back up north to college, dd and boyfriend left Thursday evening to back to their homes and jobs, Auntie left yesterday afternoon, still have MIL and DS1 and his gf. DH and his mom are tending the bonfire, DS and GF are playing tennis and I am taking a break in the library :-). We took MIL who has advancing dementia to local ballet school matinee performance of the Nutcracker today and she LOVED it, much to our surprise and delight! Biggest excitement--- daughter's boyfriend asked DH for our permission to ask her to marry him! We are keeping quiet as he plans to do this in a few weeks and we don't want spoil the surprise! We could not be happier as the young man is exactly who we would order as a SIL and he is truly devoted to our girl.

Tired of cooking and serving, that's for sure! Mtn, I realized -- finally-- that I used a 9.5" springform pan instead of a 9" or 8", which is why it looked so flat. It was still delicious, though, and the apple pie from our local Methodist youth group was fantastic! And do you know, I am sending people home with their gingerbread house kits. We were having such a good time talking and visiting that the afternoon sped by with no need for a planned indoor activity! We will save ours for Christmas Eve when my nephews are staying over.

Chibimimi, you are a veritable pioneer! I cannot imagine cooking over an open fire and really admire you for not giving in and running to the nearest restaurant.

Bbstx, wine was definitely involved! We had a Viognier and a Beaujolais for our turkey dinner, and shooters of hot wassail spiked with spiced rum in mini christmas mugs. Let's just say it was pretty cheerful oPattyxlynn, what a great idea for a dessert/snack---- caramelized apple chips----and I'll bet your apple cinnamon loaves were delicious! I am often dubious of the photos I see on Pinterest.......they look like the product of a craft room staff, not a single harried individual with a pair of scissors and a roll of ribbon.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

Oh my gosh, I just read this. You are such a good sport about it all. I fear I would be whining and wining non stop if I had that all to deal with.

I wanted to use a ginger snap crust for my pumpkin pie but our internet was out the entire day before Thanksgiving. That is what happens when you become too dependent on web site recipes. I need to find a good app that will let me view saved recipes when the internet is down.

Congrats on your DD and beau, wonderful news indeed!

Patty, could I have your recipe for the caramelized apple chips? Now that we have power back, I'm in the mood to use the oven.

holly-kay, I use Pepperplate. I have it on my laptop, my iPad, and my iPhone. It syncs itself to all 3. When I'm at the grocery and think Oh, I would like to make xyz. Wonder what I need?, I can look it up on my phone. It has a menu planning function and a grocery list function. I don't use either of them. But for adding recipes and having them available, internet or not, it is good.

DD has my password. So instead of texting me to send her a recipe, she just looks it up on my Pepperplate.

Oh! I forgot the best feature - it's free!

Here is a link that might be useful: Pepperplat

Kswl, Congrats on the upcoming nuptials. Very exciting! There is a website that posts Pinterest fails from real people. They show the original pin and then pictures people have sent in of their rendition. It is very funny and goes to show, like you said, it's not as easy to pull off as people make them look.

Chibimimi, The chips were a happy accident. I sliced apples (neither peeled nor cored) on a mandolin, very thin, and baked them at 250 degrees for 50 minutes per side.

The first time I did it, I put some sugar and cinnamon in a plastic bag, shook the apples in it, and then baked them. They came out fine, with nice curly edges and some of the slices had the nice star shape in the middle. But I thought they were too dark and decided I had used too much cinnamon.

The second time I did it, I mixed up some sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and sprinkled it on the apples slices, both sides. I made sure I didn't put in too much cinnamon but since I didn't, it didn't show up on the apples as well and I had trouble seeing where I sprinkled it. So I put more on and had a healthy dose on each side. It turns out that the extra sugar caramelized the apples!

Definitely use parchment paper or they will stick. I baked them 50 minutes, turned them, and baked another 45 minutes. My oven runs a little hot so I'd say between 50 minutes to an hour each side.

When I turned them over halfway, they were floppy and there was a sticky mess under them. I did not think they were going to work. When I took them out, they were still soft but crisped up very, very fast when they cooled. Literally a couple of minutes. As far as the cinnamon to sugar ratio, I eyeballed it and just made the sugar a little colored. Oh, and the apples, you can use any kind. I had Galas in a bag and they were a little sour for my taste so I hadn't eaten them yet. They worked like a charm. Any old kind will do!