Friday, November 30, 2012

Thanksgiving Extravaganza

Last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving three times.  It was a Thanksgiving Extravaganza, and it was wonderful and exhausting.  I made lots of delicious goodies I was able to share at all the events (I planned out my recipes earlier last week here).  Thursday was the Haugo Family Thanksgiving in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.  After making all my goodies, Josh and I were an hour late.  We missed eating a warm dinner, but the cold leftovers were delicious!

I'm a stickler for fresh pumpkin pies.  As in, I only make pumpkin pies with fresh roasted pumpkin.  So, the first thing I did when I got off work on Wednesday was roast a pumpkin.


While the pumpkin was baking, I put together the ingredients for the fresh apple pie, mini pecan pies, mini salted caramel apple pies, and chocolate peanut butter pie.  It was a little hectic.  I baked for about 12 hours.  I finished baking everything and still had some extra pumpkin leftover so I made mini pumpkin whoopee pies.  These desserts were certainly a labor of love, and I was so happy to share the with our families.



Haugo Family Grandkids
The "older" Haugos

Friday, we headed up to Maplewood, Minnesota, for the Huntley Family Thanksgiving with Josh's mom's side of the family.  There were almost 30 family members in attendance, and it was great seeing them all.  Josh and I accidentally wore matching shirts.  It makes us easy to spot in the family photo.

Huntley Family Photo


Saturday, I hosted Thanksgiving dinner with my mom, sister, four kids, and Josh and Sophie. On Wednesday, I made the brine for the turkey.  It was my first time making a brine, and I feel very sophisticated for making a "fancy" turkey this year.  I also tried making mashed potatoes in a slow cooker.  The convenience of letting the potatoes cook for hours on their own seemed lovely, but I don't think I'll ever make them like that again.  They ended up being kind of hard (not like my normal fluffy version); I think they were overcooked and I wasn't impressed.  My sister took photos on her camera; the only one I took was of my delicious peanut butter chocolate pie.  I doubled the peanut butter filling...and I don't think I'll ever go back to the original recipe.  More peanut butter is always better.



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