Happy Thanksgiving - My cooking

This year for Thanksgiving, I will be celebrating with my mother and my brother and other assorted extended family.  It will be an absolute delight I am sure.

When I was invited, I volunteered to make a pie, a cake and maybe something else. After a few text chats with my brother, I decided to also make my aunt's recipe of Cranberry Relish. 
The first thing I cooked was the cake.  It is a rich chocolate cake base....so the topping (frosting, icing - whatever) needs to be light, right?  Ha ha.  Wrong.  I found a recipe for a fudge-y chocolate icing that you pour on.  Once I started making it and it was cooking down, I realized that it was almost the same as the chocolate fudge my mother made when I was young.   The cake was well cooled before the icing was even started, so when the icing was ready to use it went right onto the cake.  (That is important with this recipe or it will harden before you can use it.)

It doesn't look like a lot, but I will confess that I ate a bit of that icing and it is MMMMMmmmmGood. 

Next up was the Cranberry Relish.  I wait until AFTER Thanksgiving and buy cranberries when they are marked to half price or less.  Then I freeze them in the bag they came in - inside a freezer bag.  They keep beautifully and you can use them when you are ready.  I have kept one bag for two years and they were still excellent.   This bag was just frozen for a year.  

The recipe adds strawberry jello, sugar, canned pineapple and walnuts.  I also added some orange drink mix just for extra flavor.  

Here it is in the bowl it will be transported in. 

 Hmm...... let me dip a spoon in so you can see the texture. 

(true confession:  That spoonful ended up in my mouth.  Wow!  It is delicious.) 

Finally, I repeated the apple pie recipe that I used for my Uncle's birthday pie. 

This time I opted for Star shapes in the top crust. 

There are three star holes and the three star cutouts are placed between them.  There was leftover filling for this one. It is stored in the fridge for maybe another small pie OR to eat with hot biscuits for breakfast.  

I feel really accomplished.  I also went to Mom's and "helped" her make the dressing.  We made two pans of it to take. (unless she sneaks into one of them.  Haha.) 

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and remember to be thankful for all that you have. And also be especially thankful for those problems that you don't have!  

I wish you love and happiness on this day and throughout the year.  If you can read this, you are truly blest.

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