Thanksgrubbing

This year we went to Grampy's (my mom's dad) farm close to Temple for Thanksgiving.  We had a smaller holiday than usual because my brother and his new wife (sounds so weird to say 'wife'!) were on a cruise on their honeymoon, and my Uncle Gary, Aunt Lisa, and their two boys stayed in Abilene.  With just my mom, dad, sister, Aunt Cindy, Jeffrey, and me, we had a rather quiet break.  Don't worry, though, we didn't let the meager showing keep us from cooking like we were trying to feed a small army. 

My mom cooked the most incredible feast for turkey day, including (of course) an entire turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and her famous stuffing.  The next day we thought that the seven of us could just munch on the ample leftovers, but Grampy insisted that we cook an entire ham.  A whole turkey...an entire ham...seven people.  Yeah, we had some leftovers.

Proof that we had fun:


Dixie dog got to come to Thanksgiving this year at Grampy's.  Her favorite holiday activity?  Sprinting as quickly as possible from one side of the farm to the other.  She is the only one who lost weight over the break.

Grampy is pretty great in the kitchen, but all the ingredients in his recipes are measured in "dashes" and "little bits" and "about so much-es," so it's difficult to emulate.



Dad and Leslie shelling pecans.  The weather was perfect for porch-sitting!



Remember what I said about sprinting?  I had to use the motion capture feature on my camera to catch this shot.



Family photo

Big red barn




Big red barn remix



This is the magazine's version of the Chocolate Gingerbread Toffee Cake.



This is me trying to make said cake.  I was planning on showing an "after" shot of the cake, but let's just say that it looked like the opposite of the magazine's cake.  Instead of three layers, it was more like 19 layers since every bit of the cake stuck to the bottom of the pans and had to be peeled off in layers.  I made the ganache too thin, so it ran all over the serving dish instead of neatly separating the cake layers.  Oh yeah, and I added the sugar to the whipping cream too early, so the cream never whipped, and thus, we had no icing on our cake.  The up side?  Chocolate, gingerbread, and toffee are STILL delicious together, regardless of the presentation!