Thanksgiving Weekend

We booked a cabin in northern Maine for three nights, planning to return home on Monday in time to have a Thanksgiving meal with Shane's parents and his youngest brother's family.
So to help with the meal, I prepared a pumpkin pie and gave it to my mother-in-law before we left for her to freeze and thaw while we were away. Overall, the thawed pie was okay, but I wouldn't prefer it that way. The filling in the center was more soft than the rest of the pie, but it did taste right.
I used the remainder of the canned pumpkin to make Susan's Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins which I posted many years ago, but to make it easier to find, I put these delicious muffins in their own post. I bagged some to deliver to a friend and then packed the rest for the cabin. 
The night before we traveled, I made Cream of Carrot soup for dinner to use up some sad looking carrots. It is a family favorite and I sometimes pair it with egg rolls or use it as a starter to the main course. 

Because we were leaving late in the afternoon, I made a homemade pizza for us to eat for dinner so that we could skip a supper stop and reduce the amount of nighttime driving in rural Maine.
I use the pizza dough recipe from my original Betty Crocker Bridal edition and if I have time, I freeze the dough before thawing to use. I like the way it stretches after thawing and the crust seems the right amount of chewy but still soft.  This time, remembering how the dough really can stretch, I made it into a rectangle pizza. Parchment paper made it easy to lift off the pan, onto the counter, slice and serve.
The few pieces that were left over were tucked into a freezer bag and warmed-up for a late lunch upon our return home for a few of us.  As easy as it is to buy frozen pizza and I do sometimes, homemade is just so good!

We cleaned up, finished packing and loaded the trunk to the gills with all five of our duffle bags and food stuffs. It was the first time we have used this little car for the five of us to travel in since our SUV was no longer stable enough for long distance travel. And it was the first time Seth has traveled back into the United States since 2019. His work and school schedule conflicted with our recent trips.
I sat in the back to help keep Kate occupied, aka, keeping as the peace. She doesn't like her siblings telling her what to do sometimes and yells about it. I try to mitigate her quirks from upsetting others especially in such close quarters. We usually load the tablet with downloads of her favorite shows from Netflix but that was overlooked in the hustle and bustle of packing and leaving. So after traveling for a bit, I entertained her with looking at photos and videos on my phone of her or family. Later Laura showed her pictures of our cat on her Ipad and she liked that too. The trip to the cabin from our house was under four hours and really didn't last that long. We are so used to long twelve hour car trips that the time really flew by although traveling in the dark isn't fun if you have to look out for moose and deer. But the blue sky and sunshine while it lasted made the fall colors glow as we whizzed past. All the photos were taken from out my window or the front windshield so the quality isn't great at times.

Safely arrived, the first night is always the least comfortable, but I made bacon and eggs the following morning before we headed into Bangor to do some shopping. The wind had really picked up and bits of tree debris were scattered on the roadways as we headed south. In Bangor, we managed one store and then realized that a lot of places in one area did not have power. We lunched at the McDonald's in a sunny corner booth and listened to the comings and goings of peoples' experiences. The family right behind us was also from Canada and I heard a teenage girl expressing hesitancy in going up to order something else because she didn't "know how to work American money". That was hilarious to me since I know I struggle with Canadian money when I first moved here.
The other store Shane wanted to go to was Bull Moose Records and was right behind the McDonald's. We checked to see if they had power and then all trooped in for a look around. I found some secondhand books to bring home and Shane found the cds he was looking for. Since the selective power outage had closed a few other places we wanted to check out, I suggested we go get coffee and donuts and head back to the cabin.  I went for a forest walk when we got back and Sunday was spent at the cabin except for a short walk around a nearby town. I made supper for Saturday night and then lunch and supper again for Sunday night all with food I had brought with us or picked up in Bangor. 

We crossed back into New Brunswick around noon on Thanksgiving Monday and with an hour of traveling left, I messaged my mother-in-law to see what time she wanted us to come out. We arrived at her place late afternoon and enjoyed time with our baby nephew and his parents while she finished cooking for us. Kate showed off her new Halloween costume that we bought for her in Bangor and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal together.  

Had one or two of these before, but must have given away or sold them; I couldn't pass up this nice collection of gently used to put back on our shelves.

Someone told me she didn't like some of Hank's mannerisms so for fifty cents I decided to see for myself since I never actually read one.

Susan's Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

 * Susan's Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins *: (the following are her words) [my changes are noted in brackets]
(recipe originally from her blog, High Desert Home; she is currently blogging at Psalms. Coffee, link also in my sidebar)

2 c. all purpose flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. ginger
1/4 t. all-spice
2 c. sugar [I use cane sugar]
4 eggs
2 c. canned pumpkin
1 c. vegetable oil [my note: I've been using coconut oil and butter to make 1 cup in place of the oil]
1 1/2 c. bran flakes [I omit this ingredient]
6 oz. chocolate chips (we almost double this) [I use 1 mounded cup of chips]

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together first 9 (dry) ingredients on list and set aside.

In large bowl of an electric mixer, beat eggs til foamy; add pumpkin, oil, and cereal. Mix well. Add sifted flour mixture, stirring only til combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Spoon evenly in greased muffin tins (or use papers to line).

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes (we never bake this long, usually only baking for 22 to 24 minutes; depends on your oven, I guess). Cool completely on rack before removing from pan.

Yield: 18 muffins [I got 24 this time]

a bit of late summer and early fall

Those photos are just from my camera card from late September and these first few days of October. The camera malfunctions enough to no longer be reliable to take important photos that cannot be missed, but for capturing slower life scenes it still can be prodded and wrangled into finally taking the shot I was trying for.  
Keeping corn on the cob warm by wrapping the cooked cobs in dish clothes/tea towels is what my mom always did when she served it. Do you think I could find anyone on the internet suggesting this when I looked for just now "how to keep corn on the cob warm on the table"? So far, no. Surely other people must do this too? This is just meant to sit on the table for a family meal. If you were catering a larger group, you would likely need a crock pot or something as it sits longer. Anyways, I brought back some of my mom's dish clothes that she doesn't need anymore and took this photo as we had the last of the corn on the cob for the summer.
The rest of corn I cooked and froze to use throughout the winter. My mom always froze corn and it tastes so good in winter soups and meals. My mom also served cauliflower steamed and I hated eating it since it was usually waterlogged and bitter. My mom no longer cooks, but she was a great cook, but as a child there were a few vegetables I really, really did not like steamed. Roasting and stir-fry to the rescue!
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have bought a cauliflower head and cooked it. Two times it was probably used in a broccoli soup as a nod to the Subway soup I used to get for Kate before she could eat a sub sandwich. Two more times, it was probably roasted with a few other root vegetables and not very noticeable.  And once I think I tried to make it like mac and cheese, but used cauliflower in place of the macaroni. It wasn't terrible, but I had a vague remembrance that my family felt like I had cheated them out of mac and cheese.
A couple of weeks ago, it was on sale at a local grocery store and before I could stop myself, I picked one up, perfectly creamy white and brought it home. I kept looking at it in the fridge and then finally took the plunge a few days in and decided to roast it by itself with enormous amounts of olive oil, salt and pepper and massive amounts of parmesan cheese. When I asked for feedback from my husband, he said and I quote, "I liked it. I wouldn't normally care for cauliflower, but cooked like this, it tastes good." Exactly my thoughts. Smother something in olive oil, seasonings and cheese and it has to be good. 
The mantle is currently flanked with two depictions of our little Siamese/Tabby cat. The newest addition is a cross-stich piece of a Siamese cat that looks just like our Flossie. It looks like it was done by someone with the initials M.T. and then the year '86 added underneath. Laura found it while we were thrift-shopping in my in-law's town back in early August with visiting family. It looks exactly like her so we had to bring it home.
The kids joke that we have no family or childhood photos around, just pictures of our cat. I'm afraid I've never been one to hang up family photos except for one brief stint in a collage frame I bought many years ago and even that didn't last very long. I have no explanation except we didn't have a lot of family photos in my house as a child so maybe it's my mom's fault! But Flossie is so pretty, it's hard to say no to depictions of her breed. Oh well, I try to show love to my kids in other ways that hopefully makes up for the missing framed photos of their sweet baby faces. 
I have so many classic novels on the go right now, it seemed only right to add Don Quixote to the mix especially when I realized there was a whole book of illustrations that most modern editions do not include. I borrowed both from the library and might need to order copies for myself. I'm only one chapter in but I have already laughed and reread certain parts multiple times.
For the first time in a long time, I'm dipping fall leaves in beeswax. I usually press them with wax paper and enjoy them while they last which is usually only a few months. I've been adding to the collection every few days as the leaves fall, putting them on display, using them as props in photos and centerpieces for a dinner table. I have a small two-handled copper-bottomed sauce pan I thrifted years ago that I keep handy to melt the beeswax in. 

The little wooden carved bird was made by a friend of my in-law's who was visiting them a few weeks back when Kate and I stopped by. Kate was introduced to him and immediately gave him a hug. He was so touched by this that he went out to his truck and brought one to give Kate. He sands the birds so very smooth and then usually stains them in gorgeous earth colors and sells them. We've seen them for sale in a store nearby and Laura even bought one a couple of years ago for a friend who was admiring them. And now, we have one for us too!