Thanksgiving!

This year we decided to skip St. Louis all together and stay in KC for Thanksgiving. However the last 2 years we were with my family for both Thanksgiving and Christmas there so it evens out. On Thanksgiving day we went to Simon's step brother's house and his Dad and step mom joined us. His step brother's wife had prepared a wonderful meal and I contributed a pie.

Not just any pie, the most stressful pie I have ever made. You see I have been making pies since I was 8, not only do I just love pie but my Great Grandma Viv was the best cook/baker/you name it in the world and I loved everything she made and did, I would make pies then take pictures and send them to her! She always told me how beautiful my pies were and whether it was the truth or her just being a good grandma it always made me feel so special.

This pie though was just difficult. Last fall we went to Eckert's Orchard in Illinois and picked apples, I made a huge batch of pie filling and froze it, so that was easy. However I like to use the Betty Crocker pie crust recipe from my mom's Betty Crocker book, however I am not driving 4 hours for a book and I knew my mom was super busy preparing for the feast at her house so I didn't want to take up her time having her find it and email it. So I Googled a recipe. 

-It took atleast 5 times of rolling the dough out then wadding it back up and trying again to even get it into the pie pan! The dough just wasn't working with me. 

-For the top I rolled out another circle and cut stars out with a cookie cutter, that to was hard to get on and it was hard to seal the edges together.  

-My Grandma June told me to cut a hole in a cheap metal pie pan to use as a crust cover, great idea right? Except my pie was in a glass dish that was bigger than the metal dishes, so I had to wrap additional foil around that for a crust cover.

-I used an egg wash, but couldn't find a pastry brush so used my fingers and a spoon...

Luckily after it baked I was not displeased with the results, but I was not pleased wither. The very edges of my crust were darker than I wanted and apparently the wash was not even because some parts got that perfect gold while the majority stayed almost white... can't win em all!

The next day we got Chinese food with Simon's mom and went to see Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2, AMAZING! 

Today we crafted (secret surprises for the Moore Christmas) and put out some Christmas decorations!

Tomorrow will be errands and cleaning, my favorite! NOT