Pie Anyone?

For the second year in a row, I'll not be fixing any turkey or sweet potatoes for our Thanksgiving dinner. This year we'll travel a few hours to celebrate with my family and last year we celebrated with my Man's family. The year before that, we were with my family where we experienced a bit of painful drama, or rather my Uncle John did {more on that here}.

In the absence of turkey roasting, I am going to contribute a pie or two to the feast. One of our gang's favorite pies of the last year which we discovered on a visit to the Amish country is called Oatmeal Pie, it's kind of like a pecan pie except instead of pecans you add oatmeal. Since my Ant Sab has a nut allergy it (if it turns out ok) should be just the thing.

It's a very simple pie to make and often even the kids give me a hand with the filling.

Here's what you need:

Oatmeal Pie
{Printable Recipe Here}
1 pie crust (for a single layer crust)
1/4 cup melted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup oatmeal
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup water

Here's what you do:

Place the pie crust in to the pie plate. Prick it gently with a fork a few times on the bottom to prevent blisters on the bottom of the pie.

In a mixing bowl, combine all of the rest of the ingredients.

Now your ready to pour into the crust.

You could pop it into the oven at this point and bake at 350˚ for about 30 minutes...

OR you could dress it up a bit, it is Thanksgiving dinner and all.

Gather the extra pie dough and roll it together and take a cookie cutter to it just like you'd do for sugar cookies.

Then, float the pie dough cut outs on top of the pie filling...

NOW pop your pretty pie into the oven for 30 minutes at 350˚...

Serve with ice cream, or whipped topping, or real live whipped cream. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

{The other pie I'm making is an Apple Cranberry Pie found here}

Molly on Monday

Hi everybody! It'th me, Molly Joy.

I learned a new trick that I'd like to show you. If you happened to be keeping' up with the thtuff I'm learning to do, you'll wanna know about thith one.

Mom wath usin' her phone for the pictures so, they're kinda blurry. Thorry 'bout that.

I wanted to learn how to cross my eyes, like Kate was doin' the other day, and well, I figured it out!

Look!

TA DA!!!

(OK, I know it woulda worked better if I'd opened my eyeth a little more, but really, I'm only three!)

That was fun, huh?  And now...I'd like to thing a thong for ya!

Make thure you're volume is on!

I learned that at my AWANA club!

Have a happy Monday everyone!

Love,

Molly Joy

(Entertainer Extraordinaire)

Pumpkin CrAzY!

I been a smidge obsessed by pumpkins this season. I know, you're thinking, everybody goes a bit overboard in October and November with pumpkin-is-ity. I'm here to tell ya, I've not merely gone overboard, I've almost turned my entire family orange!

We've had Pumpkin Snickerdoodles (ehh not so good), Pumpkin Coffee Cake (a hit), White Chocolate Pumpkin Spice cookies (different and yummy), and Pumpkin Bread that rivaled Starbucks' best offering--and speaking of Starbucks, I've had more than my share of Pumpkin Spice Lattes!

I've got a few more pumpkiny adventures lined up for us, but tonight, I'm revisiting my favorite pumpkin discovery so far--Pumpkin Pancakes! These little wonders have the most tender texture and lightness of any pancake I've ever made.  They have one extra step that I don't usually take the time to do with regular pancakes, but it is so very worth it and really, it's not that big of a deal. More on that when we get to the eggs.

Here's what you need for a recipe that makes about 20 medium-sized pancakes (we usually have some left over for the freezer). You can easily half the recipe to make less servings!

Pumpkin Pancakes with Molasses-Cinnamon Syrup
{Printable recipe here}

Pancake Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 Tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice*
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup skim milk
1 cup buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk, just use 2 cups skim, or whatever kind of milk you have handy)
1 stick butter melted (8 TBSP)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups pumpkin puree
8 eggs, SEPERATED

Here's what to do...

Begin by heating your skillet or griddle.

The first part is easy.
In the biggest bowl you own, mix the dry ingredients: all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. (If you don't have pumpkin spice on hand, you can use 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. ground cloves, 1/2 tsp. ground ginger). Whisk ingredients together until well combined.

Next, melt butter and add it to the two cups of milk/buttermilk mixture.

This cools the butter so that it won't cook the eggs when it comes into contact with them.

Now for the fun part. It's time to separate the eggs.

Place the egg yolks in a medium sized bowl and add the milk/butter mixture. Add to that the pumpkin and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and stir until well combined.

Now for those egg whites...put them into the mixer bowl. If you have a whisk attachment on your mixer, load it up--if not, your beaters will work just fine. If you don't have an electric mixer, I've seen Martha Stewart whisk egg whites by hand with a lovely smile on her face...

Here's how I did it...

Finally, gently fold the egg whites into the rest of the mixture until the egg whites resemble cottage cheese in the mixture.

Now you're ready to cook! 

Place about 1/2 cup of the pancake batter onto griddle/skillet and spread around a little to flatten. 

Cook on the first side until the pancake begins to bubble slightly, then flip...

...and add butter and syrup, 

...and eat!!

We topped our pancakes with butter and Molasses Cinnamon syrup which I adapted from  Simple Bites.net here. 

Molasses-Cinnamon Syrup 

{Printable Recipe here}

Ingredients:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

4 Tablespoons molasses

4 Tablespoons light corn syrup 

1/3 cup water

1 tablespoon butter

Combine all in a sauce pan and heat and stir until combined well. Serve warm. Store extra syrup in the fridge.

{Pancake recipe adapted from The Curvy Carrot}

Autumn, the Year's Last, Loveliest Smile

See all the sunshine pouring down?

The leaves are gorgeous.

See the lovely...

SLEDS??

School was out for the day and a beautiful day it was. The temperature was perfect and the great outdoors needed a visit from my children. I'd barely suggested that they should take advantage of what was surely one of the last nice days of the season, when I heard the door slam shut behind the last child. 

I set about cooking dinner, at a quiet and leisurely pace when just outside of the kitchen window, I was more than thrilled to observe the following activity...

Four sleds + two rakes + seven million leaves + four siblings + one sky full of sunshine = three hours of creative play and one very busy photographer/cook!

{Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.}

~William Cullen Bryant

A Bit of Weekend Fun

I am having a ball these days on a neat site called Pinterest. Pinterest is, at its simplest, an online bulletin board where you can "pin" various images from around the internet so that you can remember where you saw that neat whatever-it-was. I love the visual nature of it and I am really enjoying following the interests of some of the "real life" folks I know and the interests of some of the bloggers I follow.

One of the very best benefits of "Pinning" (what one does on Pinterest, similar to "tweeting" on Twitter) is that people pin FUNNY stuff and since I'm all about laughing, I keep going back for more. Below is one of the funny images that has placed itself in my brain. The truth of it is what makes it so funny to me...

I haven't set foot on any running adventures since I saw this picture. I'm regathering my nerve!!

If you'd like to join in on the Pinterest fun, you are welcome to follow me as I scope out fun things to cook, make, and especially laugh about. My user name is Gretchen Wright. (Click on my name to go to my Pinterest profile.) If you need an invite, email me at the Wright Place's email address: thewrightplaceemail{at}gmail{dot}com  and include your email address so that I can send you an invite.

Easier still, just click on that red button over there >>> in the right hand column that says, "Follow Me on Pinterest."

To learn more about Pinterest in general, click {here} for a good overview.

Finally, if you do happen to discover the fun and usefulness of Pinterest, beware, it is awfully, wonderfully addictive. Frankly, I'm telling you about this fun new thing at the risk that you'll not have time to visit here ever again because you just can't bear to stop "pinning".  Please, come back and see me soon. Promise?

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Toothsome...

"I think it's finally ready Mom."
"OK, come here and let me check. Yes, I think it's ready to come out. Go choose your thread."

It's a right of passage here. When you must have a tooth pulled, you get to pick your poison.  Kate chose a pale pink with which to lasso her jiggly tooth.

Another loose tooth tradition round these parts is that Daddy MUST be out of the house for the event. Daddy. does. not. do. teeth. Daddy had a meeting, so it was all systems go.

Meg prepped the warm salt water for the swishing after the fact, and Cole stood by for support, hoping the tooth would fly far and fast and he could catch it before it landed.

Molly, curious, remained a few steps removed from the nervous twittering of her older sis.

Twittering calmed, we got down to business and finished our task.

Then there was a little crying, and a lot of swishing, and then...well, the rest is not important except the part where the newly released baby tooth was tucked into its special pillow and bid farewell.

At the end of the matter, the Tooth Fairy in charge of the Special Division of Front Teeth was summoned.

For the first time in many teeth-losings, the Tooth Fairy showed up the very next morning ( and did not have to be reminded daily for the next week as is the norm here lately) and paid handsomely for the tooth.

The next morning, the tooth's former owner was...thooooo thurprithed!

Book Slump

Source: busybeelauren.com via Tsh on Pinterest

I can't seem to get into any good books lately! I've been reading bits and pieces of some lovely non-fiction, some of which has left a big impression on me, but along fiction lines, it's been famine city! And while being in a book slump is a real bummer for me, it has been utterly distressing for my Man, who has been, of late, walking around with a sack full of books that he is particularly excited about.

"These," he says, nodding toward his bag, "are not just any books, these are rich reading."{A list of these rich books can be found by clicking HERE.}

Then I'd sigh and say, "If only I could get into a good story..." and cast a glance longingly into his book bag. Poor man. It was as if I was accusing him of eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Crunch in front of me without offering a spoon.

Days later my book-lovin' Man said to me, "I've not seen you in this kind of shape for a long time...I think I can fix it."

"Hmmmmmm," thought I, wondering what he could do to "fix it." My Man and I read from such opposite sides of the universe, he almost purely Christian non-fiction and I a fiction fanatic with a cookbook added here and there for flavor.

Later that day he announced, "Look for the UPS man in a few days, I've ordered something for you."
"Hmmmmmmm," thought I AGAIN, wonder what he thinks he's on to. I, never one to let things rest began the inquisition, "Fiction or Non-Fiction?"

"I am not answering any questions, you always figure out my surprises and I'm not letting you this time."

Undeterred, "Is it a new book or a classic? How did you come to have knowledge of this book? What color is the cover, and speaking of the cover is is a hard back or soft back? Why do you think I will like this book?"

"Nope," said he, "not tellin'."

The day my new book was to arrive my Man said, "If that book comes while I'm not here, you must wait until I'm here to open it."

"Really?! You've really got me wondering babe..." and apparently, that's just where he wanted me.

"So much for you not being into getting gifts and being surprised," he chuckled.

"This isn't a gift sort of thing, it's a surprise book, that's a whole different ball game," I attempted to explain. Really, it was a treat anticipating a surprise that had the potential to end by book lethargy that had my heart skipping a few beats.

"Have you considered that this book can in no way equal the build up you've created?"

"Yeah, I thought about that, but I think I've done good."

Finally, my package arrived. He got to the box first and opened it and hid it in his coat.

When I entered the room, he handed me this...

It is the fourth in a series that I absolutely adore and that I've mentioned here before entitled I'm Half-Sick of Shadows. The series of mysteries is by Alan Bradley. The star of the books is 11 year-old Flavia de Luce, one of my all time favorite fictional characters. For an introduction to Flavia, click here.  I didn't even know that the next book was out! I didn't know that another book in the series was even expected. 

Click here for a fun preview video of this fun book. 

He got me. I was surprised and excited and touched that he-who-has-NEVER-read-a-mystery had been keeping track of one of my favorite series. He later confessed that Amazon.com sent him a notice that this book was going to come out and that he'd been waiting for a week or so for it to ship. 

Nice, right?

He's not a perfect man (I had to change my own porch light and all the other day...), but I've got to tell you, it lights up a little part of the inside of me to know that I was on his radar!

Book slump over!

What Piano Recitals are Good For

I was baking a batch of White Chocolate Pumpkin Spice cookies while my two big kids conversed.

{Recipe here}

Cole: What is that wonderful smell?
Mom: It's the cinnamon in these cookies I'm baking for Meg's piano recital.
Cole: That's one good thing about going to Meg's recitals, especially the October one...that table full of cookies!
Meg: Is that the ONLY reason you like my recitals?
Cole: Of course not...
Mom: (Thinking to self) Nice, he's gonna say he owes her for all of the time she spends at his ball games...
Cole: Recitals are also a perfect time for a good nap!
Meg: COOOOLLLLE!!
Cole: Errr...after Meg has played of course.

Stinker!