The chaos came afterwards.

This is my late Thanksgiving post. I have been very tired. And I also took home the wrong camera on Thanksgiving night. I took home my friend's brand new Canon DSLR. I have the older model, which was a good mistake on my end, but not so much for her. :-) I had to wait until she stopped by my place to switch the cameras back, so I could upload my photos.

Since my last post, Melody was a perfect angel and went back to her regular schedule. She went to bed every night with no problems for 3 nights. I started prepping and baking on Wednesday night while DH looked after her. I'll talk about the baking afterwards. So, we showed up at my friend's parents house in Brooklyn for Thanksgiving. Melody had lots of fun. We basically let her roam around freely. Lots of people were there to watch her and hold her.

She even had a little friend to play with, Evie, my friend's daughter. Evie is 2 months younger than her, but she is much bigger than her. Her parents kept saying how light Melody was compared to their child. Even though Evie seemed fascinated by Melody, she was not interested in Evie and preferred to crawl around and pull herself up on the furniture.

Evie can't crawl, so it made it easy for Melody, who is very mobile, to snatch things away from Evie. They are playing with a pair of silicone pot holders which they loved more than toys.

Starting Thanksgiving night, she started waking up in the middle of the night screaming and crying very hard. We thought maybe she had too much stimulation at the Thanksgiving party. Plus, we got home past her bed time. I noticed that any time we go out and she gets off of her schedule, she would wake up at night. But nope, that's not it. We are on our 4th night of her waking up screaming and crying. I usually find her in her room, standing in her crib, clutching the railing and screaming. The thing that has been working to calm her down is to put her in the exersaucer and she watches tv with DH or watches DH play video games. After maybe an hour or two, we give her another bottle and then put her to bed. She will start crying as soon as she sees her room and crib, but I put her down kicking and screaming. I leave the room and she will cry and scream for a bit. But will soon settle down and fall asleep because she is exhausted.

DH thinks she may be teething again because he noticed her chewing on her blanket. Not sure what it is, but I have no hopes of her sleeping through the night tonight. She always goes to sleep fine, but then will wake up a few hours later. I am wondering if it could be night terrors. My neighbor's 2 yr old has that.
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Let's talk about the Thanksgiving Desserts!

The first the thing I worked on was John's Pear and Almond-Cream Tart from Everyday Food. Disaster struck with this dessert. I broke my mini-food processor making the almond-cream filling. It handled the grinding of the almonds and sugar fine, but it couldn't handle the cold butter and the rest of the ingredients. What I thought were wisps of powder sugar coming from the machine was actually smoke! I burned out the motor. I thought that if I let the machine cool down it would work again. Nope, it's dead. I finally gave up and rummaged around to find my Cuisinart Food Processor. I hardly ever use it since I don't have any kitchen counter space. After finding the base, I had to find the parts which were stored somewhere else. DH could hear me grumbling the whole time from the living room.The full sized food processor made the almond-cream filling in two seconds. Oh well, live and learn. I broke a small appliance for the sake of convenience. Now, I need a new mini one so I can make Melody's food without hauling out that big thing.

It turned out so well. Everyone really loved this tart. So, it was worth the trouble, I guess. I thought it might be a bad omen for the rest of the baking that night, but everything turned out fine.The next thing to go into the oven was the Mini-Pumpkin Cheesecakes. I can't leave cheesecakes out of the dessert line up because there are people at Thanksgiving that are big fans of my cheesecakes. I usually do a big cheesecake, but this year I made mini ones since the ones I made this Summer were so well received.

Here is the recipe:
-2 (8 oz) pkgs of cream cheese
-1/2 cup of canned pumpkin
-1/2 cup of sugar
-1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
-1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
-a pinch of ground cloves and nutmeg
-2 large eggs
-Any 9 inch crust you want. I used vanilla wafers in cupcakes liners in a muffin pan, so I got 12 mini cheesecakes.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. I set mine for 325 since I use a convection oven.
2. Mix all of the ingredients together (EXCEPT THE EGGS) with an electric mixer until well blended.
3. Then add the eggs until blended.
4. Bake for 40 min if using a graham cracker crust. I baked the mini ones for about 30-35 min. I tested them at 25 min with a toothpick. Let cool and then refrigerate, preferably overnight, but 4 hours will work, too.

I wanted a stabilized whipped cream topping, so I bloomed 1/2 teaspoon of gelatin in 1 tablespoon of warm water. I took one cup of heavy cream and whipped it halfway with sugar to taste. Then I added the the gelatin water and whipped it until firm. I piped it onto the cheesecakes with a piping bag and tip, but you can just spoon it on top. I did this about 45 min before I had to leave the house and it held up fine.The 3rd dessert was an Apple Tart. This Apple Tart was really big. I only had one 9 inch tart pan (which was being used for the Pear Tart), and the rest were too small, so I used a 11 inch for this tart. This is always a crowd pleaser and easy to make.On Thanksgiving Day, I decided to whip out one more dessert, Cranberry Apple Cake, during the afternoon. I couldn't take a picture before we left because it was dark out already, so all I have to show is a crappy picture in the fluorescent lighting after it was cut into many times. Everyone raved about this one also. Saying how light it was. Yeah, butter and heavy cream will make a dessert very light tasting.

The recipe is actually a Pear and Blueberry Cake. I used the recipe before to make a Apple Cake, using apples in the batter and on top. This time, I used cranberries in the batter and apples on top. Maybe someday, I will make the real version of the recipe. The only trouble I ran into was the baking time. Even after 50 min, the center was gooey. I have a convection oven which usually speeds up the baking time, but it was not so with this cake. I tented it with some aluminum foil so the top wouldn't brown any further, and baked it for another 30-40 min. Because it took longer to bake, I was running out of the house with this cake and into the car.
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I hope everyone in the US had a nice Holiday. The day after, DH, had to work. While I was feeding Melody lunch, I heard trickling water. We have a half bath right off the kitchen and the sink was overflowing with water. The water was not coming from my place. In our condo, a lot of the apartment's pipes are connected and there must be a blockage, so when someone in the upper level took a shower, the water had no where to go but up my sink and all over the bathroom. My apartment is on the street level. I think I wanted to cry at that point, but I came to my senses and ran to get a bowl to scoop the water into the toilet as it was coming. I stopped halfway and the rest of the water drained.

The rest of the afternoon was spent talking to the condo management and waiting for plumbers. This was while tending to a cranky baby. She wanted to sleep, but couldn't because the plumbers were making a ton of noise. I kept her busy with toys while they worked. Then my neighbor rang my doorbell to tell me that the plumbers broke through to her bathroom sink. Our bathrooms are back to back, so the snake they used went up her sink. They had to repair her side before finishing up my bathroom. It was a Horrible Friday!!

If any of you actually read this whole thing, I commend you. You all deserve a prize. I will be having a Giveaway soon, so be sure to stay tuned and enter.