Thursday, November 27, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving!


Today we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the USA.  Thanksgiving was first celebrated to give thanks for a good harvest by the colonists of Plymouth Plantation and members of the Wampanoag Indian tribe in 1621. Nowadays most of us tell one another what we are thankful for around the dinner table during our feast on Turkey. This year I made these most amazing Sweet Yeast Rolls, they were the best rolls I think I have ever had. I will be making them again and again year round. I am lucky to have a convection oven, in my oven I can proof the bread when I think it has doubled in size or doesn't appear to be getting any bigger, I turn it to the baking setting. I have never had rolls so big, fluffy and delicious! The ones shown in photo were proofed at room temperature and baked in regular oven. I wish I had photos of the first batch but we ate them all! :) 
Next best part of Thanksgiving dinner in my opinion are the desserts! This year I made my traditional Pumpkin Pie except I splurged I actually homemade the crust something I have not done in years. Pillsbury has been showing up a lot through the years. Homemade was the way to go! I could have a thicker crust which I like and it didn't get soft on bottom like the Pillsbury crusts because of them being so thin. Another tradition we have is a fruit salad, this year it was the Watergate salad, not totally a fruit salad but it does have crushed Pineapple and I love Pistachio pudding! 

Speaking of Pistachio's, we added two new pies to the dessert menu this year. Shown in photograph above. I went with a Banana Cream and a Pistachio Cream pie. So much yummy goodness! The only downside to making a Banana Cream Pie in this particular recipe is layering sliced banana's on bottom before adding pudding. This technique creates a watery brown liquid in the pie by the next day and it does not look appealing in any way. Unless you know your going to serve up pie and have enough people to eat it all that night I don't know about the banana cream in a full pie size. Maybe little individual size tarts of some sort would be a better choice.