Fall Feast

I have joked that orange and black are my favorite fall colors. But baseball aside, I neglect to mention how much I actually like my home at this time of year. Although there's more than enough orange and black to go around, there are all kinds of other colors too.

My mother may complain that liquid ambar trees are a menace to society, but I'm inclined to keep them just for this.

In my house, this time of year is also known for pies. The weekend before Thanksgiving, mommieN and I decided to conduct some experiments with pie crust to decide which recipe turned out best. The winner? Making pie crust with vodka. It was some of the flakiest crust I've ever had.

When it came to Thanksgiving, I thought I'd try a new pie this year. I found a recipe for pumpkin pie with a pecan crust. Sounded yummy. And the finished product looked lovely, if I do say so myself.

I also made my trademark apple/cranberry pie. It almost always looks good, but it looked extra good with the vodka crust.

For good measure...and because I had a good feeling that my family might not appreciate my experimentation with their beloved pumpkin pie, I made a couple of pumpkin pies using the regular ol' recipe on the Libby's label. This one turned out great. Dunno just what happened to the crust though.

My mother hosted Thanksgiving this year...which was just as well since my oven was dead. You may have noticed that there are two ovens to my range. The second one is a "roasting oven" and is really flaky about maintaining its temperature. I used it for a couple of pies, but I didn't really trust it. I made the others in a generous neighbor's oven.

We had drinks and watched football, then sat down to a fabulous feast.

As expected, the experimental pumpkin pie wasn't particularly popular. But the regular one was GONE. I guess that's what experiments are all about, huh? I'll have to find something more creative for next year.