Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Thanksgiving and the ill-fated roll story

Thanksgiving was interesting this year. Very different. We had Thanksgiving Dinner at church with a whole lot of people from the ward. I guess, there are plenty of people here that don't have family nearby to eat Thanksgiving dinner with. I made rolls from scratch for the first time in my life (which just didn't quite make it cooked to the Dinner). I also made pecan pie and jello-salad.

The ill-fated roll story:

The dough rose just like it was supposed to. I rolled a bunch of little balls and positioned them in the pan. Great so far. They rise to double just like they're supposed to. They are about to go in the oven. I move the roll pan from the top of the oven to the chair so I can take the pecan pie out of the oven. Joey proceeds to get up on the chair to see the pecan pie ...... and squashes the rolls. I take the foil off the rolls and see the pattern of Joey's corduroy jeans in the squashed dough, which looks nothing like little balls anymore.

I knead the dough, reform it into little balls, knowing I can't wait for them to cook because if we do, we'll be later than we already are. Joseph puts the completed pan in the box to take, when Mandy puts her hand in the dough ...and squashes them ...again. We take the squashed, uncooked rolls to church, hoping we can somehow salvage and cook them there.

We get to the church and there is an oven that is already hot. I am hopeful we can actually have hot home-made rolls for dinner--that perhaps it worked out better this way. But the pan is too big for the British oven. And the rolls go into the fridge till the end of the night, taken home, and cooked the next day. The Whites and McDermotts enjoy the entire batch of rolls the day after Thanksgiving despite the mishaps of the previous night. To quote Joseph, "The rolls are not pretty, but they are sincere."

The Pecan Pie:
The Pecan pie makes it to the church with a little more flour in the filling than there ought to be in it (in case you didn't catch that . . . more flour than there ought to be in it . . . ) Flour is generally not an ingredient in pecan-pie filling. Mandy was enjoying helping and was absolutely crushed when Mommy took a fit about her ruined pie. Luckily you couldn't see the flour in it till the next day when we had left-overs and the pie went cloudy.

The Jello Salad:
It set up this year, thankfully. Something I made turned out fine.

The Kitchen:
No, I didn't bring the kitchen for Thanksgiving dinner, but it was a complete disaster when we got home and Joseph joked that next year I'm not allowed to make pecan pie, and especially no rolls. (He didn't say anything about the jello-salad) and shhhh, hopefully he will forget by next year.

1 comment:

Juliann said...

Jenny, I'm so glad you're doing a blog! I absolutely love posting to mine, it's like an emotional release for me! I loved reading your experiences so far, and I look forward to reading more!! Miss you guys!

Love,
Juliann

Joseph and Jenny McDermott Family