Prepare for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I'm trying to be positive. My family has decided to be safe and stay each in our own homes; we are not even going to try to eat and zoom together. 

So, I'm focusing attention on myself and W, thinking of ways to make the day special and joyful. We will cook together - a roast chicken and stuffing - and sit down in our newly tiled kitchen (with our new flat top stove), and talk about the good things that have happened this year.

And we'll get together on the next day, Black Friday, with all four of our kids and our grandson, for dessert, outdoors. Yay, pumpkin pie!

Agenda:
1. Make a thank-you card and hand it out
2. Cook the pumpkins
3. Make pies

1. Make a thank you card and hand it out:
I am continuing the tradition I started years ago of making a thanksgiving card to give my friends. 

This year I used my painting "Smoke and Ash". I uploaded it to Pixlr, a free on-line program, to add words and a border. I printed a few to hand out, and I plan to send some by email as well.

2. Cook the pumpkins:
The secret to good pumpkin pie is to use fresh pumpkin. We only grew one small pumpkin this year, so we bought a few -- I've cooked up 5, and each one averaged 3 cups of pumpkin. That's easily enough for 3 pies!!

To cook, I chop each pumpkin in half, clean out the centers, and bake them at 250ºF until they were soft. Then I scoop them out of the skins and put the pumpkin in containers in the refrigerator.


3. Make the pies:

This recipe card is very old!

On Wednesday I will make pies-- several, because we need one for breakfast on Friday! My pumpkin pie recipe-

Ingredients:

• 4 c. pumpkin
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. each ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg

Makes one large pie-

1- Make the pastry and line the pie plate. Preheat the oven to 450ºF.

2- Put half of the pumpkin and half of the milk in the blender with one egg and blend until pureed.

3- Pour into a mixer bowl, and repeat with the second batch.

This is a double batch- enough for two pies.

4- Add sugar, salt, and spices to the mixer bowl and mix on low, then pour into pie shell.

5- Bake at 450ºF for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 375ºF and bake for 45 minutes.