Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

I love Thanksgiving weekend! Especially this year as I was able to convince the boss at work to give me an extra two days (Thursday and Friday) off. Five day weekends sure beats five day workweeks! I used both extra days just for me (at least as much as I could convince myself to do so). On Thursday I slept in as long as possible and then had a nice relaxing day around the house. On Friday I took myself to the Big City for a fun day of shopping at the Boutique (Value Village) and elsewhere.

Saturday morning I was all rested up and raring to go. Hubby and I made a quick trip to the Small City to visit the Farmer’s Market and do some grocery shopping. Hubby needed some more (!!) plywood for the gazebo so we picked that up, too. When we got home he went off to build and, with him out from underfoot, I settled down to some serious baking time. I made all my fall favourites; pumpkin pie, apple pie and butter tarts! The apple pie was made with Honey Crisp apples that we picked last weekend at a local orchard. They make a surprisingly tart filling and I’ll definitely be using them again. I made all the pastry a couple of weekends ago and then froze it to ease the workload this weekend. That saved me a lot of time. My KitchenAid was a great help, too. This is the first year ever where the pumpkin pie filling didn’t get sprayed all over the walls by the hand mixer!All told I made 1 deep-dish apple pie, 1 pumpkin pie with pastry decorations, 3 pumpkin tarts and a dozen butter tarts. Not bad for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon!

We picked these Honey Crisp apples at a local orchard last week. This will be the first time I’ve tried them in a pie.

I sure am glad that I made and froze this pastry dough last month.

This pastry mat is the perfect device for rolling out dough to the right shape.

The dough is rolled out and is ready for the pie pan.

The apples have all been sliced, spiced and added to the shell.

My pie is ready for the oven.

I used a set of fall-themed cookie cutters to make these decorations from the left-over pastry.

The pumpkin pie filling was mixed in my new KitchenAid!

The KitchenAid did a great job. No splattering of filling on the walls!

Butter Tarts were next.

The KitchenAid was great at this, too.

I wish I had a shop window to display all my lovely baked goods!

After all the baking was done we finally had a chance to break out the Halloween decorations. I have 3 great big plastic tubs full of Halloween-themed stuff and I still manage to acquire more every year somehow. It’s gotten to the point now where I have to pick out just my favourite items to put on display and I end up leaving the rest of it in the tubs. Some of my things haven’t been out for years. Maybe one day I’ll have a yard sale and everything on sale will have something to do with Halloween. Man, would I ever love to come upon a sale like that!

Here are a few of my best pieces. I hope you like them.

This witch welcomes everybody who comes to the front door.

We made this happy pumpkin family years ago.

I found this guy at Winners a few years ago. He’s kind of a cross between W. C. Fields and Humpty Dumpty. He was so creepy I just had to buy him.

This big ceramic pumpkin was another Winners find.

My Dad bought this for me at a yard sale because he knew I would treasure it.

I saw this craft on the ‘net years ago and I just had to make one for myself. This is my favourite set of hangers but I have 3 others, too. One for Easter, one for summer and a birdhouse set.

This is one of Hubby’s efforts. He found the pattern in a book he bought.

I took a stained glass class twenty years ago and this skeleton hand is one of my favourite efforts in that discipline.

The saying goes “Two heads are better than one.” but it seems that three heads just leads to confusion!

Here’s a little Halloween wish for you.

Ratty says that he just wants to give you a little kiss good-bye!