T.T.A.R.

Do you like my acronym? It stands for a Thankful Thought And a Recipe! I am actually home all week and have been enjoying my time off like no body's business!! In other words I am loving this break! In my new found free time (short lived as it may be) I have been inspired for some blog posts. My first is to share a few of my tried and true Thanksgiving recipes and to also insert a thankful thought. However these aren't the mushy gushy thanks that you may be used to seeing on blogs and Facebook this time of year. Hopefully they will all come from my kids. And you all know that no one ever knows what will come out of their mouth!

So to start off I have an alternative dessert recipe, aside from the traditional Pumpkin Pie (which even when I make this recipe I STILL must make a pumpkin pie too!), and most have heard of it: Pumpkin Roll. It's goodness is incomparable! It's sugary, cream cheesy goodness! And it really is quite simple, it's just time consuming. But the great part is that you can easily make it a day ahead because it has to chill in the fridge before serving anyways.

PUMPKIN ROLL

2/3 C. Pumpkin (100% pumpkin)

3 eggs

1 C. Sugar

3/4 C. Flour

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

FILLING:

8 oz Cream Cheese

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 Tbsp. Butter

1 C. Sugar

Mix all ingredients. Cover a 9 x 13 pan with wax paper (covering entire bottom and sides of pan) and spray paper w/ Pam cooking spray until covered. Pour dough onto wax paper. Bake for 17 minutes @ 375 degrees. Take it out and with a damp tea towel flip it over. Let cool for about 10 minutes then remove wax paper and roll the bread up with the towel. Cool for 4 hours. Once cool mix up first 3 ingredients of filling. Once thoroughly mixed, add sugar. Unroll the bread and remove the towel. Spread the filling on top (leave about an inch from the end because as you roll, it will push the icing). Roll it back up with the icing now. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour before serving. When ready to serve, cut into slices about an inch thick.

TOTAL TIME: 6 hours SERVES: About 12

I would have had a picture because I just made one this past week when we had some friends over for a game night, however we devoured it quite quickly and my photo thought was a little late, sorry :(

Now for the thankful thought: This morning my son was digging through his backpack and found his pen pal letter. They do pen pals within the school and he recently received a new letter. We were reading it to him and at the end of the letter his pen pal told what he was thankful for and then asked my son what HE was thankful for. My son, without missing a beat, replied, "I'm thankful for hunting for prairie dogs." And after a response of laughter we calmed down and asked him why to which his reply was, "Cause it's fun! And I get to collect bullets." Don't worry he means the bullet shells. I just found that hilarious and thought I would share. Until tomorrow...

Stay calm and ENJOY the holidays!