Give thanks with a grateful heart,

Give thanks to the Holy One!

As we gave thanks this year, we also celebrated the birthday of my beautiful and joyous grandmother, Winnie. To accompany the roast beast (turkey), taters, squash salad (amazing), dressing, green beans, and cranberry sauce, we topped off the meal with a birthday-candle-lit deep dish apple pie from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. We usually have pumpkin or pecan pie, but new visitors called for new traditions.

My family hosted this year and we were blessed with the presence of one of my closest friend’s family. The chaos that ensued this year was all the product of a failed oven installation! But in our usual fashion, we made it work, and being together made it totally worth the whole mess. Without a proper oven, we had to roast our turkey at our neighbor’s house in their new oven and shuffle back and forth to get dinner on the table!!

As you’ll see from these pictures, the substitute oven laughed in our faces and effused a beautiful smoky essence throughout our neighbor’s entire house. I believe this was God’s way of telling us we don’t spend enough time with our favorite neighbors anymore, because it encouraged us to stay our welcome longer and catch up with each other.

This deep-dish pie is absolutely incredible. Deb is right, it’s best made the night before, so all the flavors have time to meld and marry. I have never made an apple pie before, so I wanted to make sure I found a recipe that wasn’t too soupy but one that had enough liquid to cook the apples. Found it! We served 9 generously with this pie, and had 2 large pieces left over. As can be expected, the pie crust was an ordeal, as all pie crusts are in my opinion. I would suggest making your pie crust two days before eating the pie, then baking it one day before you want to eat it! Here’s a snapshot of another family baking adventure!

Mom’s an expert peeler,  so I take over the slicing. I sliced them exxttraa thin. Two pounds of Golden Delicious, and three pounds of Gala and Fiji apples

Smoothing the apples, layer by layer

See, we managed to get all that crust in a springform pan!

Sistah sistah

Well, the pie starts to bake and the kitchen fills with smoke a la neighbors house. So our first instinct is to open the windows and use a fan to blow the cold air out? Suggestion: don’t try that, the logic doesn’t work out…

SMOKY

My sister made elegant leaves out of leftover pie crust to place on top of the streusel..brilliant!

In the end, it all works out because everyone loves pie 🙂

Eat this with a cup of hot coffee mixed with Kahlua and whipped cream!! Happy Thanksgiving ❤