Thanksgiving with the Family

We spent this years Thanksgiving in Michigan at my mom's house. She likes to make this recipe for cranberry salad that my Granny (my dad's mom) always makes. You grind up cranberries, and few apples and oranges (one with the peel on) and then add a little sugar. Voila! However, there has been some controversy over how to process these ingredients. Granny always used a hand grinder and my mom prefers to use a Cuisinart. Granny says that the food processor chops everything too fine, and cuts open the seeds of the cranberries giving the salad a slightly bitter taste.

So we conducted an experiment! My mom found an old grinder in the basement and my sister and I made Granny's version while my mom made her version. We used exactly the same amounts of everything. It wasn't hard to tell which was which based on texture because the grinder version was much coarser. But we tried our hardest to do a blind taste test. The consensus seemed to be that the processor version WAS slightly more bitter but Mom said she still liked it the best anyway :)

I actually enjoyed using the hand grinder. It wasn't as laborious a chore as I had originally thought it would be.

I also made pumpkin pies from scratch. But I need to start foiling the edges of my crust so they don't get too brown. Lynn makes the best pie crust. She brought cranberry pie and apple pie. I need to get that recipe from her. I WILL make more pumpkin pies at christmas, even if it's just for Steve and I to enjoy. They really don't have much sugar in them. And I'm sure they are healthy for you. Especially since I don't use canned - no preservatives!! One little sugar pumpkin from Whole Foods was all it took. I think I may even skip the crust and just bake the filling in ramekins - lower carbs and less fat.

Steve and Lynn

On Friday we joined my dad and Cheryl at the UT Rockets game for some tailgating and cooking of wild animals. I ate something that was called "roadkill stew". It was sort of like chili with venison, moose, elk and the like. Very yummy. Also had my dad's famous duck wrapped in bacon. YUM! I'm not a huge football fan but there is something about sitting outside in the cold bleachers, snuggling under blankets, and drinking hot cocoa. Not to mention the marching bands! I LOVE marching bands!!!! And BGSU's band was fabulous.

Dad, me, Steve, & Cat at the football game

Afterward we used my sister's car (because we had taken the train to Michigan) to go visit my Granny and my Aunt Linette. My sister has a rickety old '97 Neon that I was afraid was just going to fall apart on the ride from the train station. You know that scene in Planes, Trains, & Automobiles when the car falls apart? This is what I'm imagining in my head. Lo and behold, the breaks were pretty much completely out at the time we decided to borrow the vehicle. So we were driving around 475 in Toledo with practically NO BREAKS. You push the pedal down and nothing happens.

Luckily my mom and Ed met us at Auntie's house and Ed knew exactly what was going on. So he drove the car back to my mom's for us and fixed it up the next day :) He's too nice. Hopefully the Neon won't just explode GTA style without warning, but I have my doubts.