Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Getting up early to start frying turkeys has become a Thanksgiving tradition amongst my husband Chris and his friends.  They gather around the turkey fryer in our driveway overlooking the most gorgeous stand of ancient old oak trees.  They fire up the fryer at around 11:00AM and hold off as long as they can to crack open their first beer.  Hey, it's once a year and it's 5:00 somewhere!

While they were busy working their magic I attended a two our yoga intensive, to center, reduce stress, focus on what I'm thankful for and of course burn a couple hundred calories. About 75 people showed up and the energy in the room was amazing. I'm still sore from that class two days later.

This year I made just two recipes.  A vegetable casserole that came from Chris's Aunt Owney (I will post that recipe later) and an apple pie. 

Apple pie and ice cream was the crowning glory of my Northern Thanksgivings.  Down here in the South there is pumpkin pie and pecan pie.  Usually Leslie, my mother in law, generously makes all the pies.  This year I decided to go back to my roots and make a good old apple pie with ice cream.  I altered the recipe right off the Pillsbury box.  It really brought back some great memories of the Thanksgivings of my childhood with my Mom, Dad and my Mom's family.  I have two Uncles who always seemed like giants to little old me and I would be right in there with my fork fighting for the stuffing and my slice of apple pie.  Definitely not the civilized view of Thanksgiving from the commercials where everyone politely passes the plates of food around.  This was more of every man for himself but it sure made for a lot of laughs.   

Dawn's Easy Apple Pie

Ingredients

2 Pillsbury Pie Crusts

1 Tbsp Egg Whites

2 Tbsp Turbindo Sugar

Filling

6 Granny Smith Apples, peeled and thinly sliced

2/3 cup Splenda and brown sugar mix for baking

2 Tbsp whole wheat flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Spray a glass pie plate with Pam for baking and roll 1 of the pie crusts over and press down evenly and gently.

2. Mix the filling and spoon into the prepared pie crust.

3. Top with the second pie crust and press the edges together with a fork.

4. Brush the top with the egg white and sprinkle the Turbindo sugar over the top.

5. Bake for 45 minutes covering with foil after the first twenty.  Cool two hours or more.

I am so thankful to have family and friends to share all this amazing food with.

Happy Holidays!