Sunday, December 1, 2019

Thanksgiving Holidays 2019

    This Thanksgiving is really nice. I encountered something I haven't noticed in a long time. I was shopping on Wednesday in the local small town grocery. Normally you run into folks you know and say the how are you's. This time I didn't run into anyone I personally knew but it didn't really seem to matter. Just about everyone was nice and chatty. Run into folks looking for something or I was looking for rolls and everyone was helpful. While standing there you talked about what you were having for dinner or who all was coming. One young woman I spoke to was trying to find some steaks of some kind to make her mother a birthday dinner. We discussed how she was going to cook it and which cut she was going pick out. Then another one talked about what they fix for dinner in the veggie department and who was coming this time and next time they would go to the other in-laws Christmas dinner.
    Everyone not just the employees was wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and a happy holiday in general. One man was coming out the store and loaded up his Thanksgiving haul in a high sided wagon. I noticed it was good thanksgiving food. It was obvious he has done this before. Must not have a car. He had a kinda poor look to him. I told him boy you got that figured out! You know how to get the groceries home!
He happened to agree. LOL
   Another lady as I was walking through the freezer department was standing there looking and thinking about the pizza. Trying to decide. I had to laugh. I told her looks like survival food! She said exactly. I said yes I cooked for a week before a holiday and my husband and son would get so aggravated because all that good food and they couldn't eat it. She said yes that's what it's like at her house. So pizza to the rescue! We both had a good laugh on that one.
    I was at Sonic on the way home. The young single lady that always works there. I asked if she got moved and she pointed to a place just down the block and said yes. I asked her if she was going to have a nice thanksgiving and she said she sure was!
     No matter the color of your skin, or how much money you have or how you get the chow home...... It looks like most everyone is going to have a really nice family holiday. I didn't see anyone that looked like they were dreading the bill or looking at the absolute cheapest item. Sure they were careful with the money but there have been times you see folks calculating everything they put in the basket. Not this year.
    I don't know if that means that we have a President Trump that has made a difference in the jobs and money available to regular folks or people are just bound an determined to have a good holiday. All I know is I honestly can't remember folks being this happy around the holidays in a long long time.

Our first Thanksgiving party was this last Sunday the 23.
Other than a taco bar I brought since it was a Mexican theme I had some desserts.


The Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies were a real hit. Most people liked them and a few just absolutely loved them!

The Mexican Wedding Cookies people really liked also and were enjoyed by many. Who doesn't like pie crust rolled into a ball with tiny pecan pieces and then dipped in powdered sugar?! LOL
Image result for mexican wedding cookies

The Black Forest Cake I made was a big hit. It was really pretty. My version was with 2 layers of chocolate cake,cherry simple syrup on each layer ( couldn't find any of the fancy Cherry booze so I had to do something different.) The middle filling/ frosting I made a heavy buttercream type of frosting and chopped some cherries I had in the freezer last summer in to smaller bite size pieces and mixed together with a little cherry extract. Some show the cherries in the middle as whole but they would have been hard to eat when your at a party.After putting the layers together with the cherry filling/ frosting I had some plain buttercream  frosting with a cream cheese extract flavor coating the top with mounds of icing all around and maraschino cherries on top of them. I put Hershey's Chocolate bar curls / shavings in the middle piled high. I couldn't find dark chocolate at the time. I have never liked chocolate and fruit together. This cake was no exception but other folks like that mix considering they way they were munching it down. I think next time it would just taste better with some maraschino cherries instead of plain off the tree cherries in the middle. 



The Honey Pecan Pie..... Now that was a whole different dessert! I was wrestling that at midnight on Saturday night. I pulled out some of the pie crust out of the fridge I had placed in a baggy to save some time. It did save some time but I tell you I don't know if I was just tired or being saved like that and not fresh I had a terrible time with that crust! I have lost the art of placing a crust back into the pie plate no matter how I did it. Rolling it on the rolling pin, folding it in 4ths, and a few other imaginative ways I had to do so much patching along the edge of the crust but I finally got it looking good. At the party it was beautiful almost. Come time to take a piece out it was just as impossible as getting it in! It was stuck all kinds of ways to Sunday and came out in pieces. Still it was a pretty good Pecan Pie Cobbler. LOL
     All the recipes did not have traditional milk or butter in them. Even the cream cheese was just a flavor an not the real thing. I had eggs in the Hot Chocolate cookies but every one of the desserts could be considered vegan / allergy friendly for most folks.
   By the time we got this all in the house and set up I was so ready to sit down I hurt so bad. I told someone I took 2 Tylenol even and I normally will take 1 on a rare occasion. It wasn't even fazing the pain from muscles pulling an back ache. She said I noticed you were a little dragging and not normal. I laughed and told her no that was from a 10 hour round trip to Kansas to pick up a new dog on Friday. I ran into town when we got back for some ingredients, cooking all day Saturday an into the late midnight hours and cooking and packing stuff up on Sunday for the party! I went home put up what I had to in the fridge and my Blood pressure was too low from the Tylenol so I drank a dew in the recliner planted myself there a few hours an when I got up I finally felt like I could walk across the room. I still had ouchies but nothing like the way it was. Every time I got up for something and I walk through the kitchen I try to put something away or do a little something. I still have the earthquake mess left over in the cabinets but I will tackle that Monday.
   Allexcia and family didn't get to come up due to weather. May have been just as well. She wanted to eat at Cracker Barrel for some silly reason and I just don't think that is a good memory to be making for the grand kids. SURE! Lets go make a long drive to Oklahoma to see granny for the holidays and eat out! Yea! See it doesn't even sound good. LOL Oh well, it all works out however it works out.

Love
 Ranchmama
( Who's Hubby says he wishes I would quit going all out on the cooking like this. I know he doesn't like the mess but he also doesn't like me being so wiped out and uncomfortable later. To bad.... I enjoy the cooking part except the kitchen is too small to not work yourself to death trying to do anything major. )