happy Canadian thanksgiving!

It actually is a bit of a sad one.  I really miss my family.  Yesterday they all got together for turkey and the works and....sigh.... we obviously couldn't be there.  It didn't bother me yesterday for some reason, but it did bother me today.  I wish so much we could have been there.

I really wanted to have my own Canadian Thanksgiving celebration here with the handful of Canadians that we know, but I knew it would be disastrous to try to pull that off given my unreliable state of health. Hopefully next fall I'll be good as gold and can have a big ol' thanksgiving feast.

The one thing I did do - I had resigned myself to making these regardless of how I felt (and thankfully I felt pretty decent) - was make pumpkin pie.  Sort of.  I saw a picture the other day of "pie pops" and thought I might try it.  

I kind of "winged it" and they actually turned out great.  I wanted to make something for the family in honour of thanksgiving, but I also wanted something that I could give to my fellow Canadians.  This seemed to fit the bill.

I made regular pie crust but cut it out into circles.  Then I lay the circles on the pan and put a blop (technical term) of pumpkin pie filling on it.  I put the lollipop stick on that and then added another cirlce of crust on top - then used a fork to seal the edges.

 The first few oozed a lot, so I got smart and made the circles for the top slightly bigger than the bottom circles.  Then when I put them on top, I sort of domed them and it kept the insides from squishing out.

 They looked much better!

I baked them for about 20 minutes at 375 or so and they turned out great.

 I figured I couldn't use a regular recipe for pumpkin pie because then the filling would be too runny so I just experimented.  I probably should have googled a recipe or something, but they actually turned out great and I don't think I would change anything.  Here's what I made:

1.5 c of pumpkin puree

1.5 eggs (I cracked 2, lightly beat them and then just didn't add it all - it just seemed like too much)

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (approx.... didn't actually measure)

1 tsp cinnamon (ditto)

2/3 c brown sugar

I just mixed that all up and put about a tbsp of the mixture in each circle (the circles were just cut out with tumblers (Canadian word - in honour of the holiday... and Canadian spelling of honour as well.  Tumbler is what we called drinking glasses.)

I was pretty beat after I made them so the packaging for friends was pretty basic.  Put them in little plastic bags, tied them with cut brown leaf ribbon and the tags were just leaf shapes I cut out last fall (I had planned to make a leaf garland and it just didn't happen).  

 I only got some of them delivered, so hopefully the remaining few won't mind carrying on the celebration for one more day!

 The kids had some when they got home from school.

 They were smitten by deliciousness.  Eric the pumpkin hater, on the other hand, wouldn't come near them.

They are none too happy that I gave (or am giving) so many away, but they don't have to worry.  I definitely will be making these again soon.

Speaking of deliciousness.

Remember the little bit of self-pity I had the other day- wanting hummus and pita chips?  Well, Saturday, while the kids and I were at Molly's birthday party, Eric said he had some stuff to do.  This is what he did:  MY HUSBAND MADE HUMMAS FOR ME, FROM SCRATCH, AND FOUND AND PURCHASED PITA CHIPS!!!!!!!

Seriously.  He really loves me.

He found a recipe online.  The recipe even called for tahini paste, which is no where to be found, so he looked up a recipe for that and made that too.  Let me just break this down for you.....  He bought a billion little packages of sesame seeds so that he would have enough.  Then he roasted them and ground them with olive oil (not an easy task with those teeny little seeds).  He also purchased all the other ingredients and then whipped it all up in the food processor.  Then he surprised me with it for a late night snack after the kids went to bed.  It was fairly garlicky, so he ended up also having to deal with my stench, but boy was it good.

Seriously.  He really does love me.