I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Our leftovers are officially gone, sad.

This year we had a Thanksgiving lunch with Jeff’s family. So happy that Jeff comes from a family of good cooks. Everything was delicious!

I made entirely too much food. I always do that, even at home.

My contribution this year was bacon buttermilk mashed potatoes. Not the least bit healthy, but so so so good!

I loaded up on a little bit of everything and definitely went back for seconds.

My favorites are always the sweet potato casserole and the stuffing. I’ve actually never had stuffing that was cooked inside the bird, I think that’s called dressing anyway.

Afterwards, we headed to his aunt Jill and uncle Allen’s house for dessert. There was pecan pie, almond pound cake, and a gorgeous tiramisu cake. (Jill, you rocked this one, that mascarpone frosting was so incredible!)

Jeff and I just finished a huge hunk of that cake last night over more video games and a growler of beer. Hooray for Sunday sales passing in Decatur!

And now, it’s that time of year where I frantically try to complete all of our holiday shopping in a few short weeks because I meant to start months ago but never got around to it. I don’t mess with that whole Black Friday business either, I hate malls.

Making any headway on your holiday shopping?

Well, we did it again. We stuffed our faces full of delicious food with family and fun!

Yesterday we headed to my maternal grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving lunch. Here’s a little sneak peak at what I brought….

When we got there my mom was finishing up some gravy and setting out all the pans of finished dishes.

Of course I zoomed right in on the stuffing.

There was so much food that we actually lost a few items in the kitchen!

I loaded up on all my favorites.

Notice the Christmas plates? It’s not just Macy’s that’s jumping the gun, we’re getting a head start on Christmas too!

Someone found the mac and cheese that was hiding under another dish, so it was time for seconds.

And my dish was a big hit, it was completely gone by the end of dinner. I made baked apples and pears with cinnamon, honey, pecans, and gorgonzola.

It was insane! Super easy to make too.

I just sliced up 4 Honeycrisp apples and 4 red Bartlett pears.

Then I squirted lemon juice all over and sprinkled on a bunch of cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg and stirred it all up.

Then I put a few dabs of Earth Balance on top to keep everything moist and to keep the sugars in the fruit from caramelizing and then burning on the dish.

That went in a 400 degree oven for about 50 minutes. I stirred everything about 3 times to keep it all moist. You have to be gentle because the fruit starts to get very soft and if you manhandle it you’ll just break everything up into mush.

As soon as it came out I sprinkled on pecan pieces, crumbled gorgonzola, and squeezed on the sweet tupelo honey.

It smelled glorious! I’m so glad everyone liked it so much.

I am really bad about taking pictures of people rather than just food. In fact, the only picture I managed to take of a living body was this one…

That’s Tripod, my grannys’ fat three-legged cat! The little bugger bit me too. He just got too excited with all the pettings he was getting from me.

It was a great meal and a great time with my crazy family. We had to cut it pretty short because Jeff was still really ill and needed to get home to rest. I’m not doing so great right now either; I really hope it doesn’t get as bad as what he’s had to go through.

Off to make some more tea and veg out for the rest of the day!

Hey ya’ll! (Yes “ya’ll”, I’m from Georgia after all.)

Here’s more of what I was up to over the weekend: Thanksgiving preparations and activities!

Jeff and I were invited to his parents’ house on Sunday for an early Thanksgiving. They live in Chickamauga which is just barely inside the Georgia border near Chattanooga, TN.

I thought I’d try to bring a vegan desert and see how it went over with everyone since I’ve still got about a week left of Vegan MoFo to contribute to. I was inspired by a 5 ingredient pumpkin pie recipe I found on Healthy Happy Life.

I purchased a pre-made crust because I am notoriously bad at making pie crusts.

He got stabbed repeatedly with a fork before I stuck him in the oven for about 12 minutes to partially bake him. (Gruesome!)

Meanwhile, I mixed up the filling…

…as Lucas inspected my kabocha squash.

I think it passed whatever test he was waging against it because he left it alone after that.

Anyway, I poured the filling into two partially baked pie crusts and stuck them in the oven for 30 minutes. (I’ll show you a finished shot later!)

Jeff and I then finished getting ourselves ready for the nearly 2 hour drive up to Chickamauga. Jeff has been sick for the last few days so he sipped on my cold cure drink the whole way up and all through dinner. Poor baby!

We made it there by about 12:15pm and were both starving by that point. Luckily Jeff’s mom, Nancy, always has something out to snack on before the real meal.

She made butterscotch oatmeal cookies and white chocolate cranberry candies…

…as well as an apple strudel cake and a plate of fresh grapes!

Isn’t she wonderful?!

And the actual Thanksgiving spread was fantastic too.

My two favorite things are always the stuffing…

…and the sweet potato souffle.  Love that sweet crunchy topping!

Everything was fantastic.  Jeff’s mother really knows how to keep the classics classy, no bright orange cheese or overly salted casseroles, just plain good comfort food. (Hey Mike and Nancy, love you!)

We were all pretty full so we let the boys watch some football before we started in on dessert. Jeff has two younger brothers; being that I grew up with just a sister I can’t imagine growing up in a house with that many boys!

Well anyway, here it is…my vegan pumpkin cheezecake pie.

Gorgeous, right? I thought so too, that is until I cut into it.

The filling seemed underbaked, nearly raw actually. We passed it out and sampled it anyway though.

Verdict: It was weird.

It tasted like straight cashews and nothing else. I had even added maple syrup and powdered sugar to the filling although the recipe didn’t call for any sweeteners, and yet it came out very savory. It wasn’t disgusting, it just wasn’t very dessert-like. I think the problem was that the recipe author used canned pumpkin pie mix for hers whereas I used plain homemade pumpkin puree. The canned stuff would’ve been much sweeter and less vegetal tasting. My fault for not following the recipe!

No matter, it wasn’t about the pie anyway. It was about spending time with our family and enjoying a meal together.

I am so lucky to truly adore my in-laws and feel loved by them in return. It was a great day with great food and great people.