Getting ready for Thanksgiving

One thing I learned from my parents was not to leave all of the holiday cooking to the last moment.

Yesterday I made of one my favorite Thanskgiving side dishes, cranberry relish. I loved the jarred kind made by Ocean Spray when I was a little kid. With a food processor it's a complete no brainer.

This is such a no brainer of a recipe that I will give it to you nearly all in pictures.

You can vary the amounts based on your personal preferences. You can also fancy this up by adding a handful of walnuts or pecans or some spices. I went completely basic here and on the not so sweet side. usually I love the dark flavor of brown sugar, but not here. Cranberry relish does better with the clean flavor of white sugar.

A day in the fridge always vastly improves the result.

I am hosting Thanksgiving this year, I am also feeding a crowd on Friday night. In order to make my life easier I made a giant rectangular pumpkin pie. I am enough of my mother's daughter to know that serving guests a half eaten pie is just not OK.

I winged the crust which is vaguely cookie-like made with flour, coconut oil, oat meal, brown sugar, two eggs, a pinch of salt, baking powder cinnamon, ginger allspice and nutmeg and pecans.

I pressed the dough into my big rectangular pan and baked it while I mixed up the pumpkin filling.

Since this is being made for a meat meal, there is no dairy in this pie.  In the past I have used  soy or almond milk to make the custard. This year I used a tablespoon of coconut oil and a couple of table spoons of flour and a bit of water  to bind the custard along with the eggs. I used one of those giant Costco cans of pumpkin puree, added lots of spices, (cinnamon, allspice ginger and nutmeg). I added brown sugar, the dark taste is perfect in this pie.

If I were my sister, or my friend S, I would have made a careful  geometric arrangement of the pecans. My guests will have to be satisfied with strewn pecans.

I baked until the surface of the pie was leathery, even in the center of the pan.

So this year, pie are rectangular.

My youngest came home from college last night.

I thought it would be nice to welcome him home with home made green pasta ravioli.

About half way through the process of rolling out the dough and cutting out the rounds 

 for the ravioli and filling them

I decided that perhaps I was a little bit nuts.

They were delicious. My son felt truly welcomed home, but it was a bit nuts on my part.

Tomorrow my cooking partner and I tackle the rest of the meal.