I’d gotten to bed late on Wednesday night and woke up an hour later than I’d hoped I would on Thursday morning. I immediately got the pumpkin pudding into the oven then set about finishing the packing for the trip south to my mom’s.
In doing a search for posts featuring the pumpkin pudding, it looks like I never did one for this dessert. It’s merely the filling for a large pumpkin pie. Here’s the recipe:
I took out the crust recipe since I don’t make it the pie.
I’ve been making it for decades and apparently I cribbed from Haydn Pearson’s Country Flavor cookbook. This was one of my mom’s favorite cookbooks.
My intern arrived about 7:15 and I wasn’t quite ready, but had finished the packing and everything, except finishing dressing. We made it to CT by 9AM and got unloaded and she headed back north to her own Thanksgiving.
My brother has 2 cats and this is Orange. He had to supervise all the goings on from the top of my cooler.
This is the trestle table we had when I was a child, along with the bench on one side. I got the table cleaned off, found a clean tablecloth , polished the table and set the tablecloth on.
My mom’s kitchen is very small and has almost no counter space. I would be working at the table.
My mom had just gotten up when we arrived, and my brother not much before. He started on getting the turkey into the oven and my mom and I set about making snacks of zucchini bread, and stuffed celery and dates. I also put out the nuts my brother had wanted.
My mom went to change her top and I made her a slice of zucchini bread and butter and set up my brother’s iPad to show her the photos from my November blog posts.
My brother got the turkey into the oven and I set about making the orange cranberry relish.
In our family this is always made with an old fashion food grinder. My brother says this is the one my mom has always had, but I don’t remember ever seeing one that was hinged to open.
One puts it together slightly differently than the one piece base type. But it worked just fine and there appeared to be less waste on the screw when I finished.
My brother set the card table up in the kitchen and it held the electric frypan of candied yams and the cooling stuffing. (That had been left in the oven too long…)
I worked on and off all morning making various dishes and showing my mom the photos from my blog. Friends of my brother arrived mid morning and they helped a little getting the food ready.
The turkey came out, cooked to perfection and was set to rest. One friend was delegated to making the gravy in the roasting pan.
The menu:
Snacks:
Cream cheese stuffed medjool dates and celery sticks
Zucchini bread
Mixed unshelled nuts
Eggnog
The meal:
Candied yams
Green bean casserole
Creamed onions
Mashed potatoes
Green peas
Gravy
Whole berry cranberry jelly
Orange - cranberry relish
Wild blueberry - cranberry chutney
Stuffing
Gravy - giblet and plain
Turkey
To drink:
Eggnog
Coffee
Water
Desserts:
Raw cream whipped cream with vanilla, no sugar
Pumpkin pudding
Apple crumble pie
Strawberry - rhubarb pie
Chocolate pie with pecan crust
We sat down about 2:30 and had a nice leisurely meal, including Orange, who sat between my brother and his friend on the bench.
He sat there very politely and waited for one or the other of them to offer him a piece of turkey.
Eventually we cleared the table and some of the friends started washing dishes while I set up the desserts and made the whipped cream.
My son had messaged inquiring what was left for leftovers. So we all contributed to this photo, putting on things he didn’t like, except the stuffing. He did find it amusing.
The bag of leftover containers was put to use and I filled a lot of them for myself and my son who was minding the farm.
Then it was time for my brother to take me to the meeting place with my intern.
It had been a nice day, though exhausting, and the drive home was uneventful. There had been nearly no traffic on the way down, and there was considerably more on the way back. We got back to the farm at 7PM.
I was very grateful to everyone who helped in getting me to CT and back, and my son who stayed behind to mind stoves, etc.
My son was eagerly awaiting his leftovers and then I got unpacked, edited my photos for the post and went to bed at 8PM.
I have nothing planned for Friday or Saturday but my helper friend will be here on Friday and I hope to have him do the soil sampling if it’s not raining too much. I expect once he is gone I will sleep off and on.
I’ve gotten notices of Black Friday seed sales but I don’t have a garden plan, haven’t done seed inventory, and will probably be too out of it to deal with it this year.