Thanksgiving 2010

I think it only just hit me that it is TWENTY TEN. And, of course, the year is almost over.

I won my 50 free Shutterfly cards, but I passed the code onto the lovely Maggie over at http://magpienight.weebly.com/. She just had surgery on her spine and I thought it might be a nice treat.

We had a great Thanksgiving. The antibiotics really started working and we all got better. I cooked a big Thanksgiving dinner - half for regular folks and the other half for us gluten mutants. I even managed to make a gluten free, corn free pecan pie for my dear mother who is also allergic to corn. If you like pecan pie, but are not a huge fan of the gooey, this is a pretty great pie. I used Namaste gluten free pie crust mix - it's also corn free.

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/pecan-pie-v/Detail.aspx

Gluten Free, Corn Free Pecan Pie

Ingredients

• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon gluten free all-purpose flour (I used a tablespoon of Namaste pie crust mix)
  
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
  
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs until foamy, and stir in melted butter. Stir in the brown sugar, white sugar and the flour; mix well. Last add the milk, lemon juice, vanilla and nuts.
3. Pour into an unbaked 9-in pie shell. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until done.

I followed a reviewer's suggestion to turn the heat down to 300 degrees and cook for 20 minutes longer to avoid burning the top and it turned out well. My Mom loved it. I'd love to make one for her to take on the plane back home, but I doubt TSA would allow that.

We had several new friends in OKC join us for our Thanksgiving feast, which was a real treat. There was plenty of food and plenty of wine. Though we were really missing our family in Houston and Austin, we are thankful to have a lot of folks around us here in OKC.

Iggy's Nana (my Mom) was willing to brave the Black Friday crowds to get Iggy his Christmas present from her - the huge set from the new LEGO theme, Pharoah's Quest.

http://pharaohsquest.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx

He was extremely excited to get it.

While he was waiting for us to get ready - fixing our hair, etc, he had us contribute to his Star Wars Mad Libs. It was a classic unschooling moment - we chatted with him about adverbs and he wrote down our answers, asking us to help him spell words. We talked a bit about how the CH sound in English is a hard CH, but in a word of French origin, like "chef", CH makes a soft Sh sound. I peeked at his handwriting and it looked pretty good. I also like the fact that he is concerned with spelling - Google has been a big teacher of spelling for him.

My Mom brought him a beautiful set of watercolors and watercolor paper. I think they have a date for tomorrow to use the watercolors together.

Lucy is talking quite a bit and definitely desires for us to read to her more often. Most of her books are books that Iggy owned, and it's been wonderful for us to rediscover the books. Right now she likes Froggy Plays Soccer, Katy and The Big Snow, and anything with Clifford The Big Red Dog.

I hope that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.