Thanksgiving Recap

Here are pictures from our wonderful Thanksgiving day. Enjoy!






We had a wonderful thanksgiving with some dear friends of ours, the Garbarino's. Tony and Mica, and their kids Bri and Vinnie were wonderful hosts. We love them all dearly. We are so blessed to have such wonderful church family.


Kevin and Vinnie seemed to have loads of fun talking about video games, computers, programming and everything else in-between!




Mica and I shared the cooking. It was lots of fun.

Bri even put on her apron too!



The night before I baked a couple pumpkin pies. I wanted to use great aunt Blanche's pie shell recipe, but I can't find the wonderful stack of recipes that mom copied from grandma for me! I was upset about that. But I was determined to make homemade pies! So I finally found a decent bisquick recipe for pie shells and went from there. Neither the bisquick nor the pie recipe itself called for a pie crust shield. My intuition said it needed one, but with no instructions I went on without one. A few minutes in I realized I needed them, made some out of tin-foil and learned next time I make pie from scratch I need to invest in a real pie shield. I couldn't keep the pieces of foil from falling off. But the pies were yummy in the end, overdone crusts and all. I should also mention, I can never completely follow recipes, I have to make them mine in some way. I didn't have enough pumpkin puree to make the two pies, so I added a few ounces of applesauce and a spoon of vanilla bourbon. And I didn't have the specific spices it called for, so I instead used the cumulative ammount of spices for how much "pumpkin pie spice" blend to put in. It worked I think. The pies are now gone! ;-) I might make it again for Christmas... if I get some crust shields.






I also made Wassil. A great site for finding out more about it if you aren't familiar with it is here. You've probably sung songs at Christmas about going a Wassailing. Well, Wassail is a festive winter-time spiced apple cider, made with cloves and cinnamon, and various citrus fruit. I can't completely give away that recipe yet, as it will be in our cookbook!

Here we Come A-wassailing

Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green,
Here we come a wand'ring,
So fair to be seen.

Chorus

Love and joy come to you,
And to your wassail too,
And God bless you and send you a happy new year,
And God send you a happy new year.

We are not daily beggars
Who beg from door to door,
But we are neighbor's children
Whom you have seen before.

Chorus

We have a little purse
Made of ratching leather skin;
We want some of your small change
To line it well within.

Chorus

God bless the Master of this house,
Likewise the Mistress too;
And all the little children
That round the table go.



Chorus


If you want to try your hand at brewing a pot of Wassail you can see many varieties of it here.
I didn't put any alcohol in it as I was making it for the kids and adults alike, but maybe for Christmas I'll make one of the versions that calls for cream and vodka!




While our friend Tony was carving the Turkey I made him wear the Turkey Apron I got from the Thanksgiving Apron swap. We all had fun with that apron!



Bri gave us all a good laugh with her fun and energetic song and dance... And this was BEFORE we sat down to have pie! (check back for video!)

WassailSong.mid



Thanks for checking out our Thanksgiving,
and A BIG THANK YOU! to the Garbarino's for opening up your home to us to have such a wonderful time of food, fun, fellowship, and friendship!