Thanksgiving Baking

While flowers in November are apparently normal for some people, it's definately not normal here. I nearly missed this little geranium blooming today. Though it's frozen hard nearly every where in the area, we've not had a hard freeze at our house. Some of our plants look sad, but most of them are hanging on, like this little trooper. I couldn't not document the occassion with a picture.

This year will be the first holiday season since my grandma died (in March). Fortunately, my family is still getting together. It was no small task to find someone with enough space to take us all on (with aunts, uncles, cousins, and second cousins, we're talking in the neighborhood of 70+ people), but my aunt Ceil will be hosting Thanksgiving, and my uncle Myron will be hosting Christmas. I will confess, though, that I've slipped several times and talked about "going to Grandma's" for Thanksgiving....old habits die hard.

For about as long as I can remember, I've been making the dinner rolls for the meal. The last couple of years, I've also brought a couple of pies (apple, at my brother's request; pecan, for myself). Can you guess what this means I'm spending Wednesday morning doing? I'll be making a total of four pies: one peach and one pumpkin for our neighbor, and one pecan and one apple for my aunt's. I'm also going to try my grandma's recipe for "Overnight Buns" this years, so I'll be getting that started Wednesday as well. The recipe for the buns follows (it's a pretty large one!). Of course, I'll let you know how they turn out, and hopefully have a picture or two.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Overnight Buns

1 pkg. yeast
1 c. lukewarm water
1 tbsp sugar
1 c. shortening
1.5 c. sugar
1 tbsp. salt
4 eggs beaten
4 c. lukewarm water
Flour

Combine first three ingredients and set aside. Mix the 1.5 cups sugar, shortening, salt, water, and eggs, thoroughly; electric mixer may be used. Start adding flour, then yeast mixture. Keep adding flour until dough reaches desired consistency for easy handling. Set this in the evening at suppertime. Knead every hour (3 or 4 times) until time to retire. Shape into buns about the size of walnuts or a little larger and place on a cookie sheet. Let rise until morning. Bake in 350-375 oven for 15 min. Makes 72 buns, plus 24 sweet rolls.