Monte and I spent the morning at ground zero for Kyle’s Challenge. There were a dozen or more smokers and grills cooking up about 50 turkeys at a time. Sides and desserts were being stockpiled as they arrived. They’ll keep this up through the night till everything is cooked and ready to be plated tomorrow.
God bless these good people. 
Today was a baking day. I signed up to bring two pies to Bill & Yvonne’s house tomorrow. They are in the seventh year of organizing and executing a massive community effort to cook turkeys and all the fixings for Annie’s Way Thanksgiving, providing a couple thousand meals to families in the community. This year their goal is to cook over 150 turkeys tomorrow, to be packaged up and delivered for Thanksgiving Day. They call it Kyle’s Challenge, which the Austin American Statesman featured a story on here. It’s quite a commitment.
All set!
All done. That third pie in the back is for Monte. 🙂
Thanksgiving Eve preparations. Tidy up the house. Tidy up the yard.
We are having enough people over tomorrow that we needed a bigger table. But, no folding card table for us! Monte went into the shop and whipped up a free-standing shaker-style table the exact width and height of the dining room table, long enough to seat another couple of people. 🙂 After throwing on a tablecloth, it looks like one long table.
After dinner we whipped up some of the things that we could make ahead of time for dinner. I made the traditional pies. Here’s my recipe for apple pie:
Crust (makes 2: one for top and one for bottom)
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup unsalted butter, cold, cut into small cubes
6-7 Tablespoons cold water
Mix flour & salt in food processor (w/ plastic blade, not knife). Add butter cubes slowly while mixing. Mixture should be dry with pea sized chunks. Add water, 1 Tbsp at a time while mixing. Dough should start to roll into one large ball.
Turn dough out onto floured surface and divide into 2. Shape each ball into a hamburger shaped patty, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 mins.
Take out, let soften for a few minutes, and then roll each crust out.
Apple Pie filling:
6-8 tart apples
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup sugar
dash of nutmeg
2 Tablespoons flour
1 Tablespoon butter
Peel and slice apples. Mix together with cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and flour. Place in pie crust. Dot with butter. Add top crust, seal and cut slits to let all the magic in. You might want to put a cookie sheet under the pie while it’s cooking to catch drips.
Bake at 400 degrees for 50 minutes.
Sheila365 