Mini pumpkin pie cheese appetizers

I forgot to post these yummy bites in October….so thought I’d post them in time for our southern neighbor’s Thanksgiving.  Funny thing, I was thinking that this weekend was USA Thanksgiving, but just found out it’s next weekend.  Happy Thanksgiving neighbors!!   But….I just received a flyer in the mailbox yesterday for Black Friday sales…..what’s up with that?  This is Canada….Thanksgiving was in October and we….don’t…..have……black…….friday!!!  I don’t appreciate retailers pushing something like that on us!!!  And that’s my rant for today.  Ahem….

Back to these bites of cuteness….in my Thanksgiving preparations I came across this mini pumpkin pie idea and couldn’t rest until I had tried making them!!  (Honestly, I spent weeks obsessing about making them, weird, eh?)  I found these precious pieces of “pie” here on SHEKNOWS with a how to.  They were so cute….but I couldn’t find most of the specialty crackers to make them with.  I did find triangle shaped Triscuits, but had to improvise with the rest of them.I found little pretzel stix in a snacky party mix from the bulk food section at the grocery store for the pie crust edge.  I picked them out and saved them for these appetizers.  The rest is super easy:  Cheddar cheese wedges for the pumkin pie.  Cream cheese (whipped or softened) for the whipped cream, piped out of a plastic baggie with the corner snipped off.  And a triangle Triscuit cracker for the bottom crust.  Assemble with dots of cream cheese to keep everything together.  I found that after I refridgerated them for a few hours the bottom crackers were starting to soften up, so I would suggest assembling these last minute.  They didn’t take long at all…..if you have your crackers in the right size!I completely skipped putting on a crust at the back….and they still looked fine.  I found that if I used a whole Triscuit, the wedge of pie was quite large….maybe too large for a kid’s appetizer.  So I carefully tried to cut down the Triscuit crackers…..kinda worked, but I was forced to eat up all the ones that just crumbled and cracked up!  (quite a few)  The big ones were reserved for Dad, and the rest of us ate the bite-sized ones.And where does the pumpkin come in, you ask, (all you pumpkin haters out there!) um, it doesn’t.  This is a case of food imitating…well, uh….food!!  I don’t know why so many of us have a fascination for food that disguises itself as some other food, but there it is.  I know I’m not the only one.  And I know there are lots of “haters” out there who find this idea awful and plain wrong.  And that’s ok.  Just beware…..next time you see a slice of pumpkin pie……beware……..beware the food look-a-likes……

DIY Fall basket decor for Thankgiving

So I’ve been rushing around, cleaning and decorating.  But this year I decided to try and only decorate with things that I already had….to squeeze my brain for budget-friendly decorating!  Ok, I admit, that I did buy a few very small things for Thanksgiving before I decided to try out this plan.  But they were very few, heh heh.  For this rather awesome crafty decoration, I used some nested baskets that I bought at Ikea about 8 years ago.  The the larger ones usually hold fruit and the smaller ones lurk in dark corners of the basement “holding things”.  So I dug up a nested set.  And then I went for a walk to “gather things”.  They say the best things in life are free, and my  autumn walk was a best thing for sure!  I found a few small pine branches, some little black berries of some sort, and some orange berries, which I should know the name of the tree they are from, but am hopeless at tree-knowledge.

I found this idea on Better Homes and Gardens  for this basket tower.  They used mismatched baskets, which looked cute.  They also used lots of expensive floral foam, which I don’t have.  A temporary tower sounded good to me.  Since it was looking rather large, I decided it wouldn’t be a table centerpiece, but just a decoration, that will be up out of the reach of little hands….so I didn’t do much to anchor it.  It’s another one of my “temporary” ideas.These baskets dip down in on one side, so that would be the front.  I found things to stack in between, cans, jars, stuff like that.  I just left the heavy things as is, but duct taped some of the lighter things for a bit of stability.  Ta da, my not too wobbly tower!Now to fill it with nature….start with the pine branches, just some small ones.  Then clumps of berries.  Then a few pine cones.Shove everything in….I’m not sure how long this arrangement will last, but it will just turn into a dried fall arrangement!  The example I was following had some really cute kumquats (whatever those are) and some lovely cloved oranges, that I did want to add, but the baskets were full!  No room for oranges.  No prob Bob.  I think it looks nice just like this….Ugh, except for the color of that wall!!!  The wall is not supposed to be pink, it’s orange, but for some reason my photos never show the right color!!  I like orange stuff….. 🙂

Anyways, I hope that this little post gives you some ideas for using stuff that’s sitting around your house, and some bits of nature (real or otherwise) to decorate for Thanksgiving or fall in general.  I know not everyone has berries popping up everywhere at this time of year……use lots of pinecones and clove some oranges!!  Some ribbon would be nice, too….oh, and you can put a candle in the top like the Better Homes and Gardens version….but then it would have to be a stable tower…..I could go on and on.  But maybe you should go decorate something….

Thanksgiving

Against all the laws of food safety, we are still eating up Thanksgiving leftovers.  Ha ha!  It’s only the mashed potatoes, really!  I’m sure we’ll survive! 🙂  This year I added “sweet mix” pickles and pickled beets to our meal, but I think I was the only one who loved them.  No pumpkin pie was baked for dessert…. 😦  instead we made linzer cookies with raspberry jam, which I think is becoming a Thanksgiving tradition for us.  Here are a few photos of our Thanksgiving table….

Place settings (later add my Romany 1975 dishes):Placemats and napkins and table runner from IKEA.

The napkin holders were cookie cutters, also from IKEA. Can you tell it’s my favorite store for bargains? 😉Cute woodland cookie cutters!  (I saw the serviette holder idea on Pinterest)Thankful for pickles!Linzer cookie making time:Thankful for good food, family and friends 🙂