Tomorrow is Thanksgiving!

Lauren is feeling better. She still has a cough and it doesn't sound good, but she's back to her normal self otherwise. Today she did a lot of playing and running around.

I made an apple pie today in preparation for tomorrow. We're going to go over to Katrina's house. We're planning the big holiday meal for around 2. Katrina is making the turkey and stuffing, I'm making fresh cranberries, the green bean casserole and the pie. Another friend is bringing the yams and mashed potatoes. I'm really looking forward to all the good food tomorrow. And I'm happy that we're doing it all early so that we can keep nibbling into the evening.

Ben has been keeping himself busy with the cars. He had to go into work this morning and then he spent part of his day running errands. This evening he's been working on his brakes again. Lauren and I went over to Katrina's house for pizza tonight, but we came home early since Lauren was being a bit difficult. But she's eating now and watching cartoons so hopefully the rest of the night will be quiet. I'm just going to sit and read and try to get to bed before it gets too late.

I hope everyone has a yummy Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'll try to get lots of pictures so I have some new ones to post.

Thanksgiving!

I wanted to share the recipes I used for this year's feast. We decided to make homemade cranberry sauce, especially since the recipe was so easy, and I made Paula Deen's apple pie again. I was going to make the green bean casserole, too, but another person brought theirs, and arrived right before I was going to start mine, so I didn't make more. Good thing, we had leftovers of EVERYTHING. It was all delicious.

Cranberry Sauce

INGREDIENTS
· 1 cup white sugar
· 1 cup orange juice
· 1 (12 ounce) package fresh cranberries
DIRECTIONS
1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the sugar in the orange juice. Stir in the cranberries, and cook until they start to pop (about 10 minutes). Remove from heat, and transfer to a bowl. Cranberry sauce will thicken as it cools.

I know, I told you, super easy, right?! And the cranberries really do "pop". This had such a delicious smell to it, and it tasted a lot like the orange juice. I could have even done less orange juice with a little apple or something, like 1/2 cup of each. Maybe next year I'll experiment a little.


Paula Deen Apple Pie
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash salt
3 1/2 cups peeled, chopped cooking apples
1 (16-ounce) jar applesauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter, chopped into small pieces
2 premade pie crusts

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Line a 9-inch pie pan with one crust. Combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Stir in the apples, applesauce, and lemon juice. Spoon the apple mixture into pie pan and dot with butter. Cut remaining crust into strips; arrange in a lattice design over top of pie.
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F and continue to bake for about 45 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

We topped the apple pie with whipped cream since we had it out already for the pumpkin pie. mmmmm!