GET INTO THE GROOVE

Music in the house makes everything more fun.  Here's our version of a great Thanksgiving mood-setting playlist.  It's a little eclectic, but so are our lives (to put that very nicely!).  Let us know what you'd add!

Be Our Guest, Beauty and the Beast
Kind and Generous, Natalie Merchant
All Around the Kitchen, Dan Zanes
We Are Family, Sister Sledge
Thanksgiving Theme, Vince Guaraldi Trio
Give Thanks and Praise, Bob Marley
Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie, Jay & The Techniques
The Bare Necessities, Jungle Book
Back Home Again, John Denver
Giblet Gravy, George Benson

PUMPKIN JUSTICE

We know - there are just too many yummy recipes to share and make this time of year.  We all have our favorites and our families' favorites (green bean casserole, anyone?).  But every once in a while a recipe comes along that's too good not to share and too good not to become a new tradition.  Move over, green beans.

PUMPKIN - RAISIN COOKIES

A take on a recipe from Williams-Sonoma, years ago. 

Don't be daunted by the long ingredient list - these are super-easy and can be whipped up in minutes.

Cookies

2 1/4 cups flour

1 cup oatmeal

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup canned pumpkin

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup chopped toasted walnuts

1 cup raisins

Icing

2 ounces cream cheese

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 teaspoons milk (more as needed)

Preheat the oven to 350.  Line 2 cookie sheets with foil, and spray with nonstick spray.

Sift the first 9 ingredients together into a large bowl.  In a small bowl, combine the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla.  Set both aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater and on medium speed, beat the butter and sugars until fluffy, about 1 minute.  Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl.  Add the pumpkin mixture in 2 additions, beating well after each addition and scraping the sides of the bowl.  Reduce the speed to low, and add the flour mixture gradually.  Beat just until all is combined.  Fold in the walnuts and raisins.

Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto the prepared sheets, spacing cookies about 1 inch apart.  Bake for about 15 minutes, until slightly golden.  Remove from oven and let cool.

Make the icing in an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater.  Beat the cream cheese and butter for about 2 minutes, until combined.  Add the sugar and beat until incorporated, about 1 minute.  Scrape the sides of the bowl, then add the vanilla and milk, adding more milk by 1/2 teaspoons as needed for a thick but pourable consistency.

Place cooled cookies on sheets of wax paper.  Using a spoon, drizzle the icing over the cookies.  Refrigerate cookies for 1 hour before serving.  Makes about 45 cookies.

THANKS & GIVING

Our children are soooo excited for Thanksgiving.  They're already talking about whose cranberries they like best, what kind of after-lunch show they're going to put on with the cousins, and how we should decorate.  They're coming home from school with ceramic turkeys and little stories about what makes them most thankful.  We love it.

This Thanksgiving, in the midst of all the talk and activity and planning, we thought we'd initiate a new family conversation.  So at the dinner table tonight, we're going to talk about Thanksgiving, but we're going to break it down a little.  Into Thanks and Giving.

We're going to discuss - as we often do - what we're most thankful for in our lives.  But we're also going to discuss that second part of the word - the Giving part.  Just to remind the little people (and the big ones, too) how lucky they are to be able to choose whether they want to eat the gorgeous herb-roasted turkey or the cajun-fried one next Thursday.  And how it's their responsibility to give to those who don't come even close to having that choice.

In that spirit, here are a few ideas that might inspire a little dinner-time brainstorm at your house.  We'd love to hear your additions!

• Ask the kids, "What would you most like to see changed in the world?  What are two little things we can do together to help?"
• Discuss "food insecurity".  In Texas, we were surprised to find out that 23.3% of children are "food insecure".  Wow.  We're a lot more thankful for those turkeys.
• Check out these websites:  www.feedingamerica.org and www.thevolunteerfamily.org .  At Feeding America, you can enter your zip code and learn about opportunities close to home.  The Volunteer Family has a fantastic list of ideas specifically for families.  A great conversation starter.

IN THE KITCHEN

It's definitely fall.  The season always puts us in an in-the-kitchen kind of mood.  Wanting to cook a little more, to warm everything up (just a little - remember, we're in Houston) to fill the house with yummy smells.  All of which has just this year brought us to a realization.  An obvious but, to us, pretty profound realization.  The realization that, really, it all happens here, in the kitchen.

Well, sure, you're probably thinking.  After all, everyone is always talking about the kitchen being the heart of a home, the place where everyone gathers, blah, blah, blah.  We don't know about you, but we never actually stopped to think about what that all means.  In real life.

Until we read Too Many Cooks:  Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes, by Emily Franklin.  In her fun, familiar, and voyeuristic memoir on expanding the palates of four picky kids and one like-minded husband, Franklin puts into words what hadn't really registered in our minds: 

"They (the children) dash off, leaving our basic kitchen - a jumble of shoes, plates, baseball cards and books, art and stick-figure drawings and penmanship practice, a red block, discarded peppers, and empty chowder dishes.  The stuff of memories."

So here it is.  Messy, at times chaotic, lived in.  All that "junk" that we move around and put away and make room for.  All those school papers, the art projects, the shoes (the shoes!).  At some point, it all winds up here.  And with all that junk come the stories about their days and ours, the lessons taught and learned, the plans being made for tomorrow and next week, the "this dinner is great!"'s and the upturned noses.  The day-to-day-ness that can be such a hassle but that, when we stop to look at it, is all evidence of a busy, growing, satisfying life lived and shared.

Pretty much, it all happens right here.

Refrigerator art.

Countertops filled with lunchboxes, produce, and ... more art.

Backpacks and one of our good-for-everything

Lucy & Michael Catch Alls.  This one holds flash cards,

math games, and practice books.

One lone flop.

THE CANDY FAIRY

Another fun family Halloween tradition.  Although this one's after the fact, and it leans just a teeny bit toward the sneaky.

Each November 1 (or 2, or 3, or 4, depending on how generous we are feeling - and how addicted we are to the Almond Joys), the Candy Fairy flits in to pay us a visit.  Our children know she is coming, and they are prepared.  They've each selected one favorite piece of Halloween candy for every day of the coming week.  And they've hidden it so that the Fairy won't have a chance of finding it.  The rest, well, it's magically moved on to some other candy bowl. 

Note to the Candy Fairy:  We like to think that our candy has been donated to make others happy.  If you could please send ours to either the US troops overseas at http://www.opgratitude.com/ or to Meals on Wheels for elderly people who can't leave home at http://www.mowaa.org/, we would be grateful!