Happy Monday

Aaah. Another Thanksgiving is in the books. And I'd call this one a big success. Great food, family, visitors from Indiana and Texas (man, I loved hearing that accent from home!), and this impromptu pre-feast prayer by the Peanut:

"Dear Zezus, I love you, and fank you for all this lovely Fanksgiving food. AMEN!"

My contributions to dinner this year were this apple pie, these buttermilk cheddar biscuits:

and these sweet potatoes:

For some reason, Blogger has taken it upon itself to rotate my photos incorrectly, so please just tilt your head to the right to view the pictures as they we meant to be seen. The recipe for the biscuits is here. I followed the recipe exactly, except I added some garlic powder, more cheese than it called for, and cut the dough into sixteen triangles instead of eight rectangles. They were good, and were compared to the ones at Red Lobster, so if you like those, this might be the recipe for you. The sweet potato recipe was given to me by a friend from back home, who answered the call when I Facebooked my need for a good recipe that didn't involve marshmallows. I changed her original recipe slightly, so here is what I did:

Peel, chop, and boil six sweet potatoes until fork tender, drain, and mash. Add a stick of butter, 3/4 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, and a couple tablespoons of maple syrup (I just poured it in...not sure how much I used). Mash this all together, and taste it to see if it needs more salt or syrup or whatever. Then spread it in a baking dish.

In a small bowl, mix together 1/2 cup flour, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup chopped pecans, and 1/3 cup softened butter, then spread this on top of the sweet potatoes. Bake for 15 min. or so, until the topping is all nice and bubbley. I actually ended up melting a little butter and pouring it on top, then turning on the broiler for a few minutes at the end to get it to bubble. Yeah, I know, I know. It's a lot of butter. But think of all the Vitamins A, B6, and C you're getting along with all that fat and sugar! These sweet potatoes were a huge hit with everyone, including Kev and my brother, neither of whom really like sweet potatoes. So, thanks, Joelle, for a great recipe! I owe ya!

The apple pie was the same one I made earlier in the fall to test out my pie bird (recipe link here). I stuck to the recipe exactly. I have become a brave enough cook to monkey with some recipes, but I don't mess with baking.

My mom made the rest, and it was all delicious. Too bad it only happens once a year.

On "Black Friday" (do we really have to call it that?), I joined my mom, aunt, great aunt, and brother for a daytrip to Old Town Alexandria. It was nice to have some time to do a little non-Mall shopping without my little sidekick. She stayed home with Kev, and they had a big time and even had a Beach Party:

So, thanks to Kev for giving me the day off, and to Jeff who drove us around and bought us a great lunch at La Tosca.

Saturday, everyone came to our house for breakfast and a stroll around Downtown Leesburg, and Sunday, I took Daphne to spend the day at G'ma, G'pa, and Uncle Jeff's house so Kev could have a day off too.

Between now and Christmas, there are many activities planned and much shopping to do, so I may be an infrequent blogger. But I will do the best I can. I will try to post the story of our unexpected Thanksgiving visitor if I get the time. I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving and a good long weekend.

Time to sit and read a while...