What I Love Most Today is Thanksgiving!!

I love Thanksgiving.  A day where we spend the entire time preparing to eat some of the most celebrated foods in our American culture, what's not to love?  It's a day all about food.  Charlie Brown said we're the first culture to set aside a day just for giving thanks.  He's a reliable source isn't he?  I'll take it, this is a great holiday.

Today I was in charge of homemade Blackberry Pie, a Chocolate Bunt Cake and Whole Wheat Crescent Rolls.  As I baked I thought about what I was most thankful for.  I'm gathered that it's happiness.

 I'm most thankful for my happiness.  Sometimes we can get caught up in thinking, "I'll be happy when...." But, I'm happy right now.  I don't own a home, we rent.  I have six kids and a husband in a 1750 sq. foot home.  We don't make tons of money by any means.  I don't have a big backyard (I have a big back porch) I own a used minivan, I by used clothing, and on and on.  Sometimes I feel like the world would want me to feel like this isn't enough to be happy.  But, it sure is enough to be happy.  It's the best.  My life keeps me grounded, and focused on what's important.  I know the Savior lives.  I have the support of an incredible family unit and friends that are like precious gems.  I have a husband and children to help me grow and grow some more.  Being happy is a blessing to me and I'm most thankful for that today.

Alright, let's see what we've accomplished today.  Two people have taught me basically what I know about cooking.  Those two would be my mom and my dear friend Marie.  My mom has given me little tid bits along the way.  She taught me to always have my ingredients at room temperature when I bake.  Things like this have really improved my game, I mean my baking.  Marie has taught me that if you want to bake well, it should be well practiced.  She makes bread really beautifully.  But, she has also been doing it over and over.  See what I mean?  I've made this blackberry pie a lot.  Making pie crust is tricky business so I thought I would share.

First of all you should have a full size food processor, which I do not.  So, something that is already tricky is made trickier because I don't have the correct tools.  I have to borrow this small one and do my crust in batches.  I split the entire recipe in half and did two batches and put them together.  You can find the recipe here.  When making great pie crust you want lots of butter and it needs to be really cold.  I cut the butter into pads and put it back in the freezer for twenty minutes.  I also use ice water while processing the crust.

Here it is.  It looks very similar to the above picture.  This gets wrapped in plastic and put back in the fridge for an hour.

Meanwhile, my roll dough has risen over night in the fridge.  Beautiful.

I've rolled it out and cut it into what looks like pizza slices.

I've rolled them.

Now I am giving a tutorial...most important.

Georgia is trying her hand at it and proves to be successful and she says.....

"It's so eeeeasyyy!"

Nicely rolled.

Together in the kitchen is such a great place to be, maybe the best place to be.  Alright, rolls are a check and rising one  more time before they bake....Back to the blackberry pie.

Here they are in all of their glory with some added ingredients.  You can find the filling for the pie crust here.
(The pie filling calls for 3/4 c of sugar!  I put a 1/4 c and it was plenty sweet enough.)

There is the crust.  Another trick to keeping pie crust flaky and buttery is to try and handle it as little as possible.  I'm really happy with the way it looks.

I put the filling in and now it's being covered.

Looking good.

The sides are trimmed and it's sealed up.

Perfection.  I don't have any other words.  How could this not taste good?

Here is the chocolate bunt cake, Gwyneth made it, it's so easy.

And don't forget the rolls.  Everything was so tasty, and beautiful to look at.

In honor of Thanksgiving Gwyneth wanted to look like Pilgrims.  These were the closest dresses we had to looking the part. We look a little more like Pioneers.  Oh, well Pilgrims, Pioneers, weren't they pretty much the same thing?......Well they both start with P's anyway.    :)   Today, What I Love Most is Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, lots of love to all.   The Klippels.