It's turkey-lurkey time

My lemon meringue pie didn't turn out. I am officially 1 for 3 of lemon meringue pies I've attempted to make. Two of them have turned into a delicious lemon drizzle instead, which tastes great on vanilla ice cream, but doesn't hold up on a plate. Too many variables in the history of making the pie to know exactly what went wrong, but I'm sure I'll try again one day.

I'm most impressed that my pumpkin-chocolate tart turned out as well as it did! Despite the fact that I could have sworn I saw some at some grocery store somewhere, I had to make my own creme fraiche. It's not that tricky, but you have to start with buttermilk and I didn't have any of the that either. I can get it at the commissary, but I needed very little and didn't want to buy a whole quart of it. So, I started with making my own buttermilk with whole milk and lemon juice. Once that was set up, I added it to some heavy cream and just left it on the counter for 12 hours. The consistency didn't seem all that different by then, but I used it anyway. I also forgot to add sugar to the chocolate crust mix, so I just generally sugared the top of the crust and hoped for the best. Despite all this, it finished well and was quite yummy. 

Everything else went according to plan, except that I almost forgot to put the turkey in the oven! I remembered about 30 minutes later than I meat to, but that's not terrible. 

Overall, we had 10 people to feed and between our contributions and theirs, we had way more food than we could ever have needed and everyone had some of their favorites represented. I didn't even get to try it all because this lemon sized gummy bear I'm carrying around takes up more space than you think it would at this point. I even waited for pie longer than everyone else, and I still was barely able to find room for it. 

After dinner, several of us played Twister (an interesting post-dinner choice, but one our friends may make a tradition) and Pit - a game I love but don't play much because you need several players. 

Literally the only photo I took all day

Ultimately, it was a great day and a lovely meal with even lovelier people. We're up to at least 4 loads of dishes in the last 24 hours, with at least another two to go, but it was worth it!