Pleasant weather, freshly-washed air, trails re-opened and not too muddy!
Even the turkeys were out enjoying the morning. (Ordinarily, Rancho San Antonio is devoid of visible turkeys Thanksgiving week, after which they reappear. Maybe they have a seasonal gig as store displays?)
I got out for a modest-length hike. This would actually have been a good time for something more ambitious (especially after too many pumpkin rolls for breakfast), except that the blister from the shoe experiment earlier in the week was being a bit troublesome. At least I could get away with wearing the Five Fingies today.
I was going to post a rant regarding VirtualBox, Linux, various libraries, and certain legacy proprietary software, but I think I'll leave that for tomorrow.
For now... well, it's time for a light lunch, after which it'll be time to start cooking. Just two of us present today, so it'll be a mini-feast. Pumpkin pie of some description, probably with pecans on top. A roast bacon-wrapped chicken. Baked sweet potatoes. Probably cornbread. Got to have gravy. Maybe some chickeny wild rice? (Yeah: got an open box of chicken broth, so using that to cook a pot of wildish rice seems to be in order.)
I think we're going to have a lot of leftovers, even substituting a modest-sized chicken for the traditional turkey.
Update 1: Pie is in the oven. There were complications.
The "thaw, unroll, and use" frozen cheater crust? Unrolled into many, many little broken bits. Had to wad it up, dig out the marble rolling pin and matching board, and roll it back out.
And, I made the mistake of following a recipe. Well, sort of following. Anyway, this one looked like a reasonable starting point. Looks like all's just right except for one small problem: it called for spooning the pecan topping over the as-yet-unbaked pumpkin filling. Even spooning from as near zero altitude as I could manage, the topping had a distressing tendency to sink. So I don't think this is going to be a visually-appealing sort of pie. Ought to be tasty, though, if a bit oddly configured. And it's not like this is a formal dinner for a large group.
Update 2: The pie actually came out looking (and smelling) reasonable; the pecans tended to float to the surface during cooking.
My vision for the bacon-wrapped chicken turned out not to work so well with the vertical roasting jig, so it's merely bacon-draped. Should come out tasty anyway.
Chicken and sweet potatoes are in the oven. Now it'll be an hour or so before cornbread and rice preparation need to begin. This might actually be an occasion for using the cast-iron cornstick pan I bought on impulse many years ago; alas, it's in storage. Surely there'll be an excuse next year.
Update 3: Oog, waddle, waddle, creak, groan. For a mini-feast, that did come out excessive. And we've got lots of leftovers (of course). I think I need to rest a while before confronting the pie.
Update 4: Pie came out unusual, but OK. If I try that one again, I'll probably use chopped pecans (i.e., smaller pieces than this time) and a denser pumpkin filling (possibly with a bit of pre-baking). It's a bit sweet for the leftovers to be breakfast fare.
And, if the weather forecast is to be believed, tomorrow will be non-conducive to outdoor exercise.
Update 5: Friday morning arrives, drizzly. Not gonna burn off the extra calories... but I'm only about half a pound heavier this morning than yesterday. Maybe I'm just not very good at the gluttony thing.
And the leftover pie is actually OK for breakfast, if combined with eggs and/or bacon. Pumpkin filling came out kind of light and fluffy; not sure why (no, I didn't put baking powder in it). Must do more experimenting. (Pumpkin pie is officially a vegetable, right?)
Update 6: Pie for breakfast. And I'm not even a proper northeastern-type Yankee, though post-move I may be considered a Damnyankee.
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