Thanksgiving.

Oh, it’s been a while…I wrote this in a timely manner and am posting it in a less timely manner and I am sorry for that. And I’ve half written three or four other posts. Eh. I hear blogging is dead anyway. But I am not. And I have those other posts to post..so I will…eventually. But if I don’t do it before Christmas…Happy Christmas! And all that jazz.

THANKSGIVING….

So, here’s the scoop. The pumpkin empanadas: super good. I used the recipe for empanada dough from The Joy of Cooking and added about two tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon. For the filling, I mixed canned pumpkin with brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and mace to taste. They were a keeper and although I am not really a “pie” person, I did enjoy both the making and eating of these.

The chocolate pie with the pretzel crust was…good. Good with some reservations. I liked the filling a lot, but it was, essentially, just a rich chocolate pudding. The crust is a good idea, but I was not picky enough with my pretzels and ended up not liking it. I say go for good, thin pretzels. I am thinking a Mr. Salty stick pretzel type would be good. And although the recipe tells you to “coarsely chop”…don’t. Finely chop. Whiz (or, if you are Jamie Oliver, “wazz”) it all up in the food processor until it’s the consistency of bread crumbs or graham cracker crumbs. Coarse doesn’t work well. And also, if you are even mildly lactose intolerant, don’t get all cocky and think you can eat this. You can’t. I don’t know why you thought you could. Just don’t.

The mashed potatoes and parsnips with carmelized onions and blue cheese were..fine. I got lazy and bought a package of cubed parsnips, rutabagas and turnips and they were a little…grainy and slightly watery. And I sliced the onions into fine rings. Next time I would cut them into cubes or something so they weren’t so…dangly. In fact, I also think I’d just go with potatoes and leave out the other root veggies. And add more cheese. You’re not adding butter or milk to these so go for the cheese.

Let’s see…what else? Oh, the twice baked sweet potatoes…they were good, but hollowing out a baked sweet potato is slightly more delicate a process than hollowing out a russet. So they got made in ramekins, and that was fine. Probably good. But once that happened I just started winging it and didn’t really follow the recipe. But the principle is sound and the flavors were good, so don’t be worried about that.

Everything else was fine. I thought last year that I was over turkey. And this year, when the turkey came out of the oven I was actually quite excited about it. And then I ate it and I thought, “Hmmm… I think I am over turkey.” And then there were leftovers and I was definitely over turkey, so…I’ll have to think on that for next time.