Our Thanksgiving Weekend

My husband brought Marina home from college the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. We hoped to beat the nor'easter that was heading to our area. Everyone else had the same idea. In spite of the horrible traffic, it was nice to have our oldest child home for an extra day. We spent that extra day baking desserts for Thanksgiving, which we held in our living room and shared with my parents. There was plenty of food and the desserts were delicious.

 Sierra put together this pudding pie. She crumbled chocolate cookies over chocolate pudding in a shortbread crust and topped it with whipped cream.

 Marina made apple pie pockets by cutting pie crust rounds into quarters and folding them into tetrahedrons around the apple, brown sugar and cinnamon filling. (She patiently corrected me when I called them pyramids.)

 I made a tiramisu cake. I used the recipe for tiramisu that I made last year and used it to frost a velvet cake. Instead of dipping the ladyfingers in coffee, I added the coffee and vanilla and almond extracts to the mascarpone mixture. The mascarpone was a little runny, so I worked quickly to cover the top of the cake and the whipped cream layer and then rushed it into the freezer to stiffen it. The cake absorbed a lot of the excess moisture. It made for a nice dessert, lighter than tiramisu would have been.

Now I'm listening to my kids play Dungeons and Dragons. Marina is their Dungeon Master, so Sierra and Chase are really happy to have her home. As am I.

Tomorrow she heads back to finish her semester. Sigh.