I’m begrudgingly posting about 2013’s Thanksgiving, because (and I’m saying this a lot recently), we weren’t supposed to be here.  So we weren’t supposed to have Thanksgiving.  Had I known with enough advanced warning, that we *were* staying here, I’d have done what I’ve done for the last four Thanksgivings, and had people over – I love my expat Thanksgivings y’see (that, and for some reason no one invited us anywhere for Thanksgiving this year) so it ended up being ‘just us’.  Which isn’t normally a bad thing, if we CHOOSE it, but those who know me will understand how crappy it was to have an a-typical Thanksgiving.

The only reason I’m posting about it at all, is to share this sublime recipe (I used previous years side dishes and what not that I’ll link you to later) but I used two new recipes that beg being shared with y’all.

My friend Sue on Facebook, who I actually know from a diet group, sent me the recipe for a deliciously new and different dessert, it looked so appetising, that I pretty much dropped everything and crossed HWY6 for ingredients.  I’m not normally a trifle fan – mushy cake inside jelly, with a tin of fruit cocktail – not my bag at all!  But this? This interested me.  A lot.

In turn, I think about four or five friends on my Facebook went out and made this after having seen my picture.  It was a mini-epidemic! It’s a Paula Deen recipe (found here!) – which I’ve never really gone wrong with before – and this was no disappointment.  It was seriously delicious.

Based on Sue’s advice, however, I did make some tweaks, firstly, make it a day ahead – something magical really happens to the flavours if you leave them overnight.  Trust me!  Secondly, use a tin of pureed pumpkin, rather than the pumpkin pie filling, and add your own heaped tbsp of pumpkin pie spice to it – this contains a lot less of the processed ‘muck’ and is a lot ‘cleaner’.

One other thing I did as well, because I absolutely abhor using box-cake-mixes for ANYTHING I make, I made from-scratch gingerbread (recipe here!)  A Nigella recipe, that I ended up using for my New Years day dessert as well – it turns out a particularly delicious cake.

I think, if you’d rather leave out the pumpkin, that you could add some pumpkin pie spice to the pudding itself and you’d still get a tasty blend of flavours, or, in fact, just some cinnamon if you favour something a little more plain.

For previous McMaster Thanksgiving’s, including recipes (and pictures) go here: 2012,  2011 and 2010!

I won’t be fooled again next year – international friends, be warned, if you’re here for Thanksgiving, we will celebrate damnit!