MomDot Blog Party Day 4

DAY FOUR QUESTION: What is your favorite Holiday recipe? Describe your Holiday table and your biggest holiday cooking disaster?

Day Four Blog Party Question is Brought to you by Bottlewise and Glow Mama

I love to bake. I love to make things from scratch. I always peeled and quartered potatoes for mashed potatoes until just a few years ago. I can't fit enough potatoes in my mixer now to keep all the big boys happy! I love to make my own bread stuffing and dinner rolls. But, I just had to give it up. I buy dressing mix, potato flakes and frozen rolls now and the world hasn't ended!

One thing I refuse to buy is pie. And Cool Whip, yuk! I prefer to make my own pumpkin pie and pecan pie for the Holidays. And REAL whipped cream is a must. This year I have a couple of gallons of cooked pumpkin in the freezer. I may try to make pies out of it. I'd share my recipes but my cookbooks are packed away from our move!

I'm a little sad because we had a glorious old pecan tree at our old house. The kids and I would head out when the nuts were beginning to drop and smack the limbs with a rake. Sometimes I would stand on the van to reach high enough. The kids would run around and pick up the nuts that rained down and put them in a plastic bin. After a few weeks of drying time, I would crack nuts whenever I had a few minutes to spare. After a while my fingers would be ripped up and sore. The shells were hard but the nuts were tasty. I guess I have to buy them from the store this year.

As far as Christmas sweets, I love to make peanut butter fudge, penuche, and anything covered in white chocolate. My favorites are dipped pretzels and peanut butter balls. For the peanut butter balls I mix natural (of course!) peanut butter with powdered sugar until it is very stiff. Then I roll the mixture into little balls and use a fork to quickly dunk them in melted chocolate. If they are not eaten up immediately I like to dip them a second time after they cool. Yeah, right.

My holiday table is the same as my regular table only we will use a tablecloth! I don't have china and my silverware doesn't match. We can't have candles in the house because the baby uses oxygen. We are traveling to my grandma's for Thanksgiving this year, so I know we will be eating on her pretty china and drinking from her nice water goblets that I remember from childhood. The little children will sit around the coffee table and eat.

My biggest cooking disaster is pretty funny since I'm always determined to make my own pies. One year I made a pecan pie that was impossible to cut into. I don't know what happened! I just remember the kids laughing at me trying to cut into this concrete pecan pie. I finally picked the whole pie up out of the pan and broke it in half with my hands. Now everyone is cracking up! It must have been 8 or 9 years ago, but the older kids still remember.