I admit I was planning on making reservations. But they were all buffets and buffets simply are not cost effective for my little picky eaters, not when kids 4 and up cost $10.95. There are not enough bread rolls on a buffet to cost justify that amount. (adults were $16.95, which is about right for me and DH comes out ahead, but not sufficiently ahead to offset the $22 for the kids).
So I did,in the end, make Thanksgiving dinner.
We had a meal out of Rachel Ray's November magazine - the Thanksgiving every day section. We had ground turkey patties with mashed sweet potatoes & gravy and salad. We also had brie and bread. True to form Havoc picked at everything and Mayhem ate the salad. Both of them ate the bread. Mayhem was eventually pressured into a bite of turkey & sweet potato.
And my mother wonders why I make reservations.
Speaking of my mother, I didn't use her pie recipe when I made pumpkin pie. Mom's recipe is - Go to Sams. Buy a pumpkin pie in the bakery.
Sam's is too far away and Safeway was sold out, forcing me to MAKE MY OWN pie.
I had 2 choices. I could buy a can of Libby's pumpkin and follow the recipe on the can (Mom used to do that before she moved near a Sams Club, so I suppose that is the 'old family pie recipe') or I could dig out the Joy of Cooking pumpkin pie recipe which calls for homemade roasted pumpkin puree.
Did I mention we only got one small pumpkin despite all the pumpkin patches & harvest festivals we went to in October?
Old family pie recipe it is!
Interesting thing about using products from different agribusinesses...they don't match up in size. Libby's pie recipe claims to make one pie, but Pillsbury's pie crust will only hold about 3/4 of the pie filling.
We had a pumpkin pie and a separate container of 'pumpkin custard'.
One more fun fact about my mom.
She didn't make anything for Thanksgiving this year.
She & my dad are currently on a 3 week cruise somewhere in the Mediterranean, headed toward the Atlantic Ocean which they will cross at the narrowest point between Africa & South America and then cruise north through the Caribbean onto Miami, arriving home about a week before we turn up at their house for the Christmas holiday. They go on at least one of these nearly month long cruises every year.
I want to be my parents when I grow up.
