Happy Stretchy Pants Day (aka day after Thanksgiving)!

Good morning! Are you all wearing leggings today?  I am! I'll probably be wearing them the rest of the week too.  Who needs skinny jeans, it's officially the holiday season! Eat, drink & be merry!*

How was your Thanksgiving?  It was my first Thanksgiving with J's family, so it was a little nerve-wracking even though it went great.  It's just hard integrating into someone elses family traditions, and letting go of your own.  Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday, I don't dislike it, but it was a little easier to let go of my family traditions for Thanksgiving and embrace his family food fest.  

I thought everyone had the same food for Thanksgiving, and maybe it's a Greek thing, but I was a surprised (and glutinously a little sad) that there where no mashed potatoes and gravy, instead they had roasted potatoes, still delish.  Or maybe I just missed my own family, so the lack of creamy potatoes was a reminder of how far away everyone is.  Big events always make me want to call my family a million times a day.  I think I talked to my dad 3 or 4 times on Thanksgiving.

Anyway, back to food...the stuffing was rice rather than bread, which again, was so incredible, but I was shocked at how much heavier my family Thanksgiving is.  They had a ton of food too, an enormous turkey, lamb, a gazillion veggie sides, but for the most part they were veggie based and light.  Maybe the heavy meal is an American thing.  The good news was that after I ate, I was stuffed but I didn't feel like I had a brick in my stomach, lol.  Maybe it's why Greeks live so long.  

Since it was my first Thanksgiving with them, I had to make a good impression so I was definitely agonizing over what to contribute the entire week leading up to Thanksgiving.  I knew I was going to make my famous rolls, but I originally planned to make individual apple bourbon pot pies. That idea was scratched when the guest list kept changing.  I was so worried I wouldn't make enough, or I'd make a lot and no one would eat it.  So I went with a pear with candied lemon peel pie.  Both turned out incredible, but again, bread isn't the focus of the meal like it is at my house, and only a few people ate rolls with dinner...more left overs for me.  

The pie was a Martha Stewart recipe, and it was surprisingly easy...except the lemon peel candying, which isn't terribly difficult, it was just time consuming.  I think in the future I'll make a big batch of the lemon peel and then save it in an airtight container ahead of time.  Then the pie will be a breeze.  Also, Martha had the pie served with this fancy butter crust, but I don't have a food processor, and didn't want to chance it not turning out, so I just used a pre-made Pillsbury one, and it tasted amazing.




Recipe - Candied Lemon Peel

• Peel lemon with veggie peeler, careful not to press too hard...you don't want the bitter white pith
• Put lemon peel in a pot with 2 cups cold water, bring it to boil.  Once it's boiling, drain out the water.  Add 2 more cups cold water, and bring to boil again.  Drain.  Repeat process one more time. 
• After boiling 3 times, set peel aside and dissolve 2 cups sugar in 1 cup cold water, once dissolved add peel and bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer until peel is translucent and soft. 
• Remove peel from pot, and toss with sugar to coat.

The pie recipe calls for 1/4c lemon peel, and I found this was about 2 normal sized lemons.   You can candy them at the same time, I didn't realize 1 lemon wouldn't be enough so I ended up doing two batches which was a big time suck, and kind of a waste of sugar.


 

I also started to make this Martha Stewart recipe because I thought I had extra time, but then the time for dinner kept getting changed so I had to edit a few things...

Bye, Bye Chocolate Mousse Pie with Phyllo Crust.  I managed to get the shell done, you line it with melted chocolate and then fill it with mousse, but as I was whipping the cream for the mousse, J called to tell me that dinner had been moved up again, and could I be ready in 30 mins?  At that point I was still in pajamas, so the answer was no...while I was on the phone with him the mouse got over-whipped and turned into a chunky mess.  Also, I heated the oven for the rolls and realized that something had dripped on the bottom and so I filled the whole kitchen with smoke...perfect timing. 

Look at my double boiler action! It would have been an amazing pie. :(

Emergency one-minute manicure.  Miraculously I only messed up 1 finger before we had to leave.

When we got home I was putting the rolls away and dropped one.  Little Humphrey grabbed it, but couldn't figure out how to eat it.  I think he was afraid that if he put it down to pull it apart it would get taken away.  Eventually, because I was afraid he was going to choke I pried it out of his mouth and only gave him a couple pieces anyway. 

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we get to officially celebrate Christmas! We're getting a tree today!