I know some people aren’t big fans of raisins, but all week I was craving an apple dessert that was warm and  old fashioned— something I would imagine on a dessert table in a Charles Dickens Christmas novel.
This pie produced the exact flavor I was looking for.
If you don’t like raisins, simply leave them out or swap in dried cranberries.  Also, I tried adding cream cheese to the pie crust.  It was good, but don’t make a special trip to the store if you don’t have any.  Just replace it with butter.

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Does anybody remember that episode of The Cosby Show when Claire is making Thanksgiving dinner and keeps sending Cliff out to the store to buy things?  She’s making this cornbread, and she needs 12 eggs for it.  I always thought, Wow.  That sounds amazing.  She also nags him to find nutmeg.  I assume that what she is making is some sort of Southern spoonbread, and so this year I made up a recipe that goes along with what she made.  Mine doesn’t have a dozen eggs in it, though. She was feeding an army.  We don’t have that many friends.

This recipe is surprisingly simple to make, and it would make a great side dish for any Thanksgiving table.  It contains no wheat four, so it would be perfect for someone who cannot eat gluten.

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A new reader named Susan made a comment on the “manners don’t matter? excuse me” post.  She gave an example of how she taught her kids manners with a little toy pig at the table.  Go ahead and read her comment.
Then, since it’s been way too long, and since Thanksgiving is around the corner, I think we should start up a little dialogue about manners.  So, here’s the question:

How do you teach your kids manners for the dinner table?

and, another question for good measure:

What are your favorite family traditions for Thanksgiving?

A few years ago, we invited our friend Shannon and her family for Thanksgiving.  If I remember right, she wasn’t a fan of cranberry sauce, but this recipe ended up converting her.   I gave her the recipe, and then the next year, I forgot how to make it.   She emailed me my own recipe, and now every year, I search through my ancient gmail archives and dig it up for Thanksgiving.  Maybe it will be easier to find, now that is on my blog.

And thank you, Shannon, for remembering the recipe!

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I know most pumpkin pie traditionalists will not join me in this, but isn’t this a fun alternative to pumpkin pie?   And guess what!  Crème brûlée is easier to make than Rice Krispy treats.  Okay, maybe it’s not that easy.  But if you’ve never made it, you’ll be surprised at what a cinch it is.

Every Thursday, when my husband is around to watch the kids, I go to a writing group at the local bookstore.  It’s fun, but lately I haven’t been thrilled with what I’ve been writing there.   I didn’t really want to go yesterday, but I had promised Connie (a frequent sophistimom commentator) that I would bring in my pumpkin crème brûlée sometime.  Last night was as good a time as ever, so I made this up and shared it with everyone.  It was a hit.  As for my writing—I’ll keep working on it.

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Every post has been orange lately.  Don’t worry, after we finish up with these pumpkin recipes, I’ll move on to cranberries.  Mm.  That will be fun.

For now, though, I’m posting a recipe for pumpkin pie.  I made this one in a deep dish ceramic pie plate with a 5 cup capacity.  I had to bulk up my recipe some to make it fit.  Then, I ended up having extra pumpkin filling, which I poured into ramekins and oven proof mugs, and baked along side the pie.  The kids like them as snacks.

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Here’s just a quick how-to on roasting a pumpkin.  Are you all sick of pumpkins yet?  I am.  It’s not even Thanksgiving, and I just made my second pie for the blog.  I think on the day of Thanksgiving, I’m just going to order pizza.

Most cooks say sugar pumpkins make the best pie, so that’s the only kind I have ever used.  Grocery stores usually label them as pie pumpkins or sugar pumpkins.  They are generally smaller, and have shallower ridges then the ones sold as carving or jack-o-lantern pumpkins.

Sugar pumpkins can vary in size, so the only way to measure how much pie you can make from one, is to roast it, puree it, and measure it.  A medium size sugar pumpkin should yield about two cups, though, which is enough to make one standard size pie.

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Lately, the only characters keeping my nose between the pages are a girl from Arizona and a boy who has been alive since 1901. Reading seems to be more difficult when all my time is taken up by kids and blogging and writing (forget cleaning!).
However, my friend brought me The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (the same book Stephenie Meyer recommended on her website) last week, and when I finally decided to read it, I was hooked.  I finished it in a little over a day.
Set in the future, in a place formerly known as North America, it is the story of a teenage girl who is thrown into a game with twenty-three other teenagers who must fight to the death.
Though probably not a book for those who cannot handle Lord of the Flies, it is free of profanity, and promotes themes of hope and humanity.
Romantic and ironic, haunting and thrilling,  The Hunger Gamesis an excellent read.

I have been a bit distant lately.  I know; I’m sorry.  I entered a fiction contest on Saturday (Yeah, yeah, la-dee-dah.  I’m sure I won’t win.), which meant the weeks leading up to Saturday were very busy.  It was hard to concentrate on cookies and chocolate when my head was buried in tall ships and Pre-Revolutionary America.

Anyway, I did come up with a few recipes, and I figured I’d post them now, while you’re all dreaming up your Thanksgiving menus.  This is the winter squash soup I promised you.  By the way, it freezes beautifully, so if you want to serve it for Thanksgiving, make it now, let it cool completely, and freeze it in a big container.  You can heat it up when the turkey comes out of the oven!

Coming soon: pumpkin crème brûlée, for those of you who want something a little different for pumpkin pie.

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Not very.  The kids are eating Spaghetti-o’s (Pixar Cars edition–Charlie’s really into Lightning McQueen these days), and I am eating chips and Guacamole (both from Costco).  I have a winter squash soup that I’ll post soon, I promise.

I want briefly to create a buzz about two of my friends who blog.

Some of you may already know Brooke—just about everyone I know knows her.  We crossed paths when we were teenagers (same youth conferences at BYU), and then again in college.   But we never knew each other until her daughter and my son were in kindergarten and their desks were separated when they were talking too much.  Anyway, her blog is called Conversations With a Cupcake.  It’s zany and fun and displays Brooke’s tireless energy and creativity.  Go check it out!

Also, my friend Theresa, who is the sister of my best friend from college, just put up a cool post on how to make edible play dough for your kids.  Never would I have thought of that, nor would I ever have the energy to do something like that since having my second kid, but for all of you supermoms (i.e. Brooke), it looks like a lot of fun!

That’s a picture of my daughter from awhile ago.  I didn’t have any recent pictures I felt like posting, so there it is.