Thanksgiving

David and I celebrate our first Thanksgiving with both families together. We had a total of eleven people including ourselves. Oh my, was it a lot of work. My mom brought two pies and David's mother brother 4 dishes and I was still cooking all afternoon. I made a turkey, ham, and a few sides dishes plus two pies. Below is my pecan pie. I cheated and used Pillsbury roll out pie crust. No time to make my own. David's friends were suppose to bring pies but they didn't so I scrambled that afternoon. This pecan pie recipe is by far the best I've made and so simple too. Not that I am a pecan pie expert or anything but the last one I made from Dorie Greenspan's From My Home to Yours didn't go over so well. This recipe is from the back of the Karo Dark Corn Syrup bottle.

The turkey noodle soup is what I did with leftover turkey. Very easy, make stock with turkey bones, add some diced celery, carrots, onions, egg noodles, season with thyme, salt, and pepper, bring to a boil, reduce heat, add the cooked turkey and simmer.

The cranberry bars are a modification of a strawberry streusel bar recipe from BHG. I used leftover cranberry sauce in place of the strawberry jam. I omitted the icing. The bars were quite good. I thought 4 cups of flour was an awful lot but they turned out just fine. Next time I will use less crumb mixture for the base and use more for the topping. The 2 cups the recipe specifies is not enough. You end up with a thick base and little streusel on top. Still tasty though and are nice with coffee for breakfast.