Thanksgiving Desserts

Over the four days of Thanksgiving, we enjoyed four different desserts - one each day! Monday, we had apple & cherry squares. This dessert is one of Gary's favorites, that his mom makes for him. The pastry is almond flavored, and the dessert is like a kugle (not sure I spelled that right!). It's very yummy! I don't know why I don't have a picture of it!

Tuesday, the day Mema and Papa arrived, I made a pie crust that was too crumbly, so Papa worked on it and made it right. Then Mema and Ben rolled it out and made the peach filling from peaches we had frozen in July. They were so beautiful, and the pie was delicious. Here's Ben and the Peach Pie ...

Wednesday, Mema rolled out the crust and I made the filling for a chocolate pie. It set up perfectly, and when we went to eat it, Gary wanted the traditional Cool Whip on it, Alek wanted a cherry, and Ben decided to make chocolate shavings! Truly a group effort, and again, it was delicious. Here's Alek and Papa with slices of the chocolate pie ...

Thursday, Thanksgiving, Mema made another crust, and Alek rolled it out and made the pumpkin filling. We ate this one a few hours after Thanksgiving dinner. He made pretty cut-outs of turkeys, pumpkins and leaves to decorate!

What a fun holiday of desserts!

Alek's Second Tone Zone Jam

Alek rocks at Sam Ash in the November Tone Zone Jam. Next month he and Ben will play with the Jam at a restaurant.

Turkeys

Here are my happy turkeys who came out this week to help celebrate Thanksgiving.
The plaque below was made by Ben last year, and I just love it - they painted his hand brown and his fingers each a different color, to make the turkey. I love that it's so permanent, on a tile. The candle next to it came from my mom a few years ago. It smells of pumpkin and spice!
Below is my biggest turkey, from my mother-in-law a few years ago. He's about a foot tall. The 'give thanks' sign came from downtown Apex last year, from 'Out of the Kiln'

From 'Out of the Kiln' last year ... I bought a turkey pitcher for my mom and mother-in-law last year and gave them as Christmas gifts.

This my big turkey platter, and turkey candle holders. The candles came from my mom. I got the candle holders from Tuesday Morning a few years back.

This was my first turkey, from Mary Louise, my mother-in-law. He's so pretty, with pretty fall veggies around him. He's only about 8 inches high, but has lots of personality.

These salt and pepper shakers came from my mom a few years back. I'm sorry they are blurry, they have very pretty colors.

This turkey is pretty ugly, but he's metal and hollow, and now has a candle inside him. The tall candle holders came from Southern Living home show, and the candles from Kohl's.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween

Blogger always loads pictures in backwards order ... so here's the end of the night back to the beginning.

Alek and Kyle watching TV at our house after trick-or-treating together. Kyle was a bloody hockey goalie. Bloody and gorry were the themes of 9-year-old boy Halloween this year.
Below is Ben in his official costume. I'm not sure what he 'WAS', but it was a black robe with a skelton chest that oozed blood through it. You can't really see the blood in this picture, but it dripped down over the skeleton part.

My friend Andrea, aka St. Pauli Girl.

The really nice restaurant in our town was hosting a scary dinner for kids, so we went along with the Meyers and the Mattox's. Five kids, 6 adults. The meal was rather dissappointing, and took far to long to be served. Usually service at this restaurant is top-notch. The wait staff was dressed up very creatively though! Below are Ben's friends Evan and Jordan. Ben and Evan trick-or-treated in Evan's neighborhood with me and Nanette as guides, while Alek and Kyle trick-or-treated in our neighborhood with Kyle's dad. Gary stayed home and handed out candy.

We had the banquet room all to ourselves, and we were LOUD:

The other end of the table .... Alek is sitting next to Jacob.

Ben and Alek in their costumes. Alek was a scary ghost. There were masks for both costumes, but they were not worn. We didn't have school on Friday Oct 30, so we got to carve our pumpkins that day.

Full view ...

Happy Halloween 2009!

Trip to the Museum

On Friday I went with the boys on their 4th grade field trip to the museum. Below are some fun photos of my group. Ben playing the chimes in the music park.

Ben and friends exploring the force of moving water in the stream exhibit.

My group, acting like the bears we had just seen. Funny, because the bears just sat there looking at us.

The group reading about the black bears, which are native to NC.

We arrived in time for a butterfly release in the butterfly house. This owl butterfly had just been hatched that morning. I doubt he made it much longer after a thousand kids passed him around! But it was great to see such a large butterfly up close.

Pot au Feu (aka, my boys ate fennel!)

On Tuesday I went to a cooking class at Williams-Sonoma. I went to one two weeks ago on Latin American food, and it was really good. This week's wasn't as good, but then I went and made one of the recipes last night, and it was really good - better than the one we made in class, probably because I added my own twist to it.

The recipe is called Pot au Feu, which is a french recipe using an inexpensive cut of beef and cooking on low, very slowly to make it tender. It's similar to a pot roast. My Pot au Feu was very tasty, and the BOYS even ATE it! Not only did they like the beef, they both ate leeks and fennel and parsnips!
This is Ben about to eat a slice of fennel - and he LIKED it. He ate several slices of it, and declared it his favorite vegetable.

Here is Alek, about to eat fennel! He liked it too, but not quite as much as Ben.

Back to Ben, eating more fennel!

So, let me share my magic recipe with you. I'm definately going to make this again.

3 lb chuck roast

wine (I used Raven's Wood Zinfandel - a hearty red)

worchestershire sauce

Salamida's Pinch (a seasoning blend that we absolutely LOVE, from upstate NY)

15 oz can fire roasted tomatoes, diced

1 T dried thyme

3 carrots

1 fennel bulb

2 parsnips

2 leeks

I prepared the roast by sprinkling a side with Salamida's Pinch, then using the pointy side of my meat tenderizer to puncture it all over. Then, I poured worchestershire sauce on that size, and pressed it again with the mallet. I find grocery store beef is rather gray and flavorless, and the addition of the wochestershire sauce makes the beef more flavorful. I treated the meat on both sides this way.

In my cast-iron enameled pot, I dumped the can of tomatoes and spread them across the bottom, laid in the beef, then poured about a cup of wine overall. Into the oven it went, at 275 degrees for two hours.

I chopped all the vegetables in to 1" sections, and put them on top of the beef/tomato/wine mixture and put it all back in the oven for another hour.

At the end of the 3 hours, the pot contained a great amount of broth, tender beef, and tender veggies. I served the beef by cutting it into 1/4 inch slices, next to the veggies, and with some sourdough bread.

I strained the broth, and saved the leftovers of beef/veggies/broth overnight. Today I made Pot au Feu soup! And the kids ate it again! I used all the leftovers, chopping them into smaller pieces, and also cooked 1 cup barley in 4 cups beef broth from bullion. I put the two together, added more Salamida's Pinch and some fresh cracked pepper. DELISH!

And it was a hearty warm soup for this dark and dreary day!

Sporty Saturday

Huge day here today. I was with Ben and Gary was with Alek, so I have more pictures of Ben ... Ben competed in the Raleigh Rampage at TRC today. He had an awesome climbing day, and came in 5th in the Youth D category. His scores from last weekend's comp were posted on the USAC website, and he's ranked 20th in his category after last week's comp. Fantastic, since he's only been bouldering for 6 weeks!

Here are some pics from today. Coach Jason helping the team (Ben, Caley, Amanda, Cameron) evaluate the routes before the comp starts.

I didn't get pictures of the climbs today, but above are Alek, Ben, Caley and little Jason, watching the finals at the end of other comp. The team is really supportive and encouraging of each other, and Ben has made some really good friends on the team.

Caley, Alek, and Ben watching the finals.

Ben and Caley sitting on the stairs watching the finals.

The other kids sitting on the other stairs.

Aren't they CUTE???

Ben came in 5th in the comp. Alek made a TOUCHDOWN today at his football game, and got the Sportsmanship Award of the game award. Unfortunately, his team lost this week, but he had a super game!

It's now 8 pm, I'm exhausted, and they are both still bouncing around the playroom playing with their stuffed animals. WOW.