Countdown to Thanksgiving - Easy Centerpiece Ideas

If you're looking for easy ways to jazz up your Thanksgiving table, I came up with a few easy and possibly free (depending on what you have on hand) ideas.

1. Leftover pumpkins from Halloween. If you have any small pumpkins left from Halloween or have found them on clearance recently, they make great centerpieces! I had several leftover, plus I was given a few recently, so I used them as my focal point. There are lots of options with pumpkins. You paint them, write on them, or leave them plain. You could even have your guests write what they're thankful for on the pumpkins!
2. Use cake stands or cupcake towers to display on. I put my pumpkins and some leaves on my glass cupcake stand that comes apart. The variation of size makes it visually interesting. You could use just one or multiples. They are great for displaying candles, pumpkins, leaves, gourds, or whatever else you think up.
   
   
   
3. Fill jars with acorns, painted or all natural. We went acorn picking a while back at one of our local parks filled with Oak trees and came home with a grocery bag full of acorns. Once we baked them to get all the critters out, we just ended up putting them in jars around the house. They were pretty, but I wanted get a little more creative with some of them. I ran across this blog about painting acorns on Pinterest. This would be a great project to do with kiddos! We just used some acrylic craft paint we had on hand. They turned out beautiful if I do say so myself!
4.  Scatter some leaves and candles in the center of the table. If you are looking for a very basic centerpiece, this would be the easiest! I just grabbed a couple things of fake leaves at the dollar store and then cut them off the stems. You could then scatter any size combination of candles on top of the leaves. Or, if you want to get really creative, you could cut holes in gourds or apples and pop in tea lights, like they do here.

I ended up doing a combination of most of the above. The important thing is to get your creative on and have fun with it!

We will posting our final Countdown to Thanksgiving post tomorrow!

Countdown to Thanksgiving - Pumpkin Spiced Cider

As our ode to Thanksgiving continues, we knew pumpkin was a must! To our young adults (Donald and I are the pastors of a young adults group called Flashpoint), I am known as pumpkin queen in the Fall. We've sat around joking several times about what kind of crazy pumpkin recipes I'll come up with next. During one of those discussions, Pumpkin Cider came up. I decided that Thanksgiving was the perfect time to take that challenge and come up with a recipe! This one is not based off any Pinterest searches, just plain ol' Erica ingenuity! Here's what I came up with.

What you need:

4 C Apple Juice (I used unfiltered organic from Trader Joe's)
1/4 C Pumpkin Puree (all of my homemade was gone, so I used store bought)
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
2-5 Cloves (depending on how spicy you want it)
2 Reusable Spice Bags (if you don't have these, you could sub in a coffee filter or cheese cloth and tie with kitchen twine)
Sauce Pot

Measure out your apple juice and pour into pan.

Spoon a 1/4 cups worth of pureed pumpkin into your spice bag and tie firmly.

Add cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and cloves into second spice bag and tie firmly.

Place both bags into apple juice and bring pot to a low boil. Simmer with lid for 2-6 hours. The longer you simmer it, the more the flavors will develop.

We let ours simmer for about 6 hours and it had a great depth of flavor! It tasted great served warm or cold. If you want the pumpkin to be the main star, lessen your spice mixture so that it's not so prominent.

We will definitely be serving this on Thanksgiving day, both for a festive beverage AND because it makes the house smell just heavenly!!

Check back for another Countdown to Thanksgiving post tomorrow!

Homemade Pumpkin Puree

I don't know about anyone else, but Fall is one of my most favorite times of the year! One of the reasons its my favorite is PUMPKIN! I love all things pumpkin! Pumpkin bread, pumpkin chai tea lattes, pumpkin chili, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin bars, pumpkin cider (that's right, I have recipes for alllll these things and I plan on sharing!).

So when I started getting the pumpkin itch, I checked out the prices on canned pumpkin. I was not thrilled, to say the least. I bought a few cans, but at $1.88 a can (the small ones), I knew it was going to be a budget buster if I bought enough for all my recipes. 

The next time I went to the store, they had put those huge bins of pumpkins out in the front of the store. I saw $0.25/lb and I was struck with a brilliant idea! Why don't I make my own pumpkin puree? Now I know what you're thinking. Those are carving pumpkins. Wouldn't they taste funny? Well, I'm here to tell you that they don't!

I picked out two small ones, about 6 lbs each and paid $3.

When I got home, I preheated the oven to 375 F. I cut off the top of the pumpkin to remove the stem and then cut them each in half. I scooped out the guts and saved them to make roasted pumpkin seeds later. I cut each piece in half, so that the pumpkins were in quarters. I laid them on a cookie sheet, no need to be fancy about. I just smooshed them all on there. 

After baking for 45-60 minutes, they got nice and soft in the oven. When a fork easily poked through the skin, they were done. After they cooled slightly, I took one section at a time and laid it on a cutting board, skin side up. The pieces will still have a bend to them, which makes it difficult to cut the skin off. I just flatten each section with my hand and then used a sharp knife to cut the skin off.

       

After removing the skin of 2 or 3 pieces, I tossed them into the food processor. I blended until the mixture looked smooth. I poured it into a big bowl and repeated the whole process until all the sections had been processed.

Since most recipes call for a can of pumpkin, I checked how many cups were in the small can I had left: 1 3/4 cups. So I measured that into small freezer baggies and ended up with 6 baggies worth! That's $0.50/bag and saves $1.38 compared to the price of the small off-brand can! I simply stored them in the freezer and they have kept and defrosted beautifully!

Before I went shouting about my savings from the rooftops, I wanted to make sure it stood the taste test. I wasn't totally sure it would, since the color of my homemade version was considerably lighter than the canned version. Donald decided to try it in a Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. We loved them! He took some to work the next day and his co-workers begged him to bring more! 

I also noticed that my local Kroger store (Smith's) just lowered their pumpkin prices to $0.18/lb! This actually included their Sugar Pie Pumpkins!! So I grabbed 10 and plan to stock up the freezer with more pumpkin puree for the holidays! I have heard rumors that pumpkin prices drop dramatically after Halloween, so it may be worth stocking up then too!

 Happy pumpkin cooking!