The Middle (The Trenches).

I've not stopped yet today. This is the first time I have put my bottom in a chair (excluding the 12 minutes on a bench at sams to gobble down a room temperature greasy piece of pizza while on a trip to get the kids out of the house, feed the five of us for 8 bucks and no dirty dishes, and see if, perhaps, Sams carries kumquats.

They don't.

Which is a bummer, because I was really looking forward to cranberry kumquat sauce, but I couldn't find kumquats in the greater metro area. I called The Fresh Market and they said they didn't even have them. Granted, I'm not entirely confident in the young woman with whom I spoke, but I wasn't braving traffic to double check her.


But despite its hecticness, the day has been very good.

Very, very good.

I have had limited moments in which I've had to unpleasantly sanctify my children (perhaps this was helped by the older two being gone from 4-7, the 'witching hours' as my mother calls them)

I have gotten a lot done.

And I've gotten to spend a lot of time making a home - with my co-homemaker - Paul's been swarming about me today - washing dishes while I was making cream sauces, and drywalling and painting holes in the walls so we can (finally) hang pictures where we want them to go - while I was, you guessed it, washing dishes.

We started the day with the kids helping me make creamed leeks.
Leeks are dirty.
They are little dirt vessels.

(So, in the picture below you'll see three dirt vessels - the bowl of leeks, and well, you know...)

So, you have to clean them.
This is challenging, but a grand job for kids.

The best way I've found is to chop them into whatever size pieces you want and then dump them in a giant bowl of cold water, and put a 4-6 year old to playing with them. This agitates the dirt off of them. Then drain them and do it again. And if you let the 4 year old take charge of the first two times, you might want to do a secret third time.

Then I sweated the leeks in butter, S&P, and they smelled divine. Especially at 9 am.

Finished the cream leeks, but while they were sweating, peeled and chopped the potatoes and grated the swiss cheese for the scalloped potatoes.

Then I finished the potatoes and stuck them and the leeks in the oven together. Efficiency is my middle name.

Then I switched focus to dessert.

I was planning to make a chocolate hazelnut tort, but I couldn't find hazelnuts for the life of me (Hazelnuts and Kumquats - Darn you!), so I switched to a flourless chocolate tort. I whipped it up (in like an hour... those things take forever), but got snobby and decided I didn't need a hot water bath in which to bake it.

I was wrong.

That happens.
A lot.

Then, we took a break and went to sams. I needed Asparagus.

Because, when I got back, I made the asparagus casserole, pumpkin pie, apple cake, and injected the turkey,

Not in that order, but I'm tired.

I championed efficiency again, and put the cake (in two pans), the pie, and the casserole in the oven at the same time:

And didn't even have to use both ovens.

Tomorrow, both ovens will be in full employ.

I'm pumped about tomorrow.
Obviously, because I get to eat all this stuff.
Twice - once at lunch and once at supper. With two entirely different batches of people.

Yay for Turkey Day.

Yay for my sweet, dear family and all of their help, without whom, none of this would be possible.

And yay for our Father in heaven, to whom we are giving Thanks, after all.


(As far as ingredients used go, I've lost count, but I do know I got to 10 sticks of butter today...)