Luckily, I have a reprieve from helping with my granddaughter this week. Today, I've been prepping some side dishes for Thanksgiving. I'm also lucky to have guests that have offered to bring side dishes. The side dishes that I'm making this year is Great Grandma Fried's turkey dressing and a recipe that I picked up many years ago at Delicious Orchards for sweet potato casserole with pecans. I've made this many times over the years and it's one of my favorites. What makes it special is that the sweet potatoes are mashed and they are topped with a delicious and crunchy topping with pecans.

 A walk through a grocery store at this time of the year and you'll notice more pumpkin flavored items than ever before. This past Sunday on CBS This morning, Susan Spencer did a report on "Pumpkin spice takes over the world." 

Over the years I have acquired recipes with pureed pumpkin in them. I found recipes for cakes, bread, waffles and now pumpkin biscotti. I had two recipes in my files for pumpkin biscotti. The first recipe I made resulted in a spongy cookie. In looking through my file a second time, I located a recipe that I previously made that was crispy. It contains no butter or shortening, but does have 1-1/2 cups of brown sugar. I love making biscotti because you get a high yield of cookies for not much effort. Monday afternoon I put together the dough for this recipe in my stand mixer then transferred to a stainless bowl. I baked the cookies this afternoon, which took about one hour. I'll place these on the Thanksgiving dessert table for my guests to enjoy. 

Unfortunately, I do not know where I found this recipe, but I've had the document in my computer since 2006.

I have a group of old co-workers that get together with our spouses a few times a year. We  enjoy each other's company and have a great time together. I had them over for dinner on Saturday night. I wanted an easy dinner so that I could enjoy my friends. I decided to make Bernice's Brisket,  butternut squash-apple soup and apple dumplings.

The brisket can be prepared several days ahead, sliced and then placed back in the oven the day of the dinner. Although Williams-Sonoma sells jars of butternut squash puree, I purchased fresh squash at Delicious Orchards and cooked it in my pressure cooker. Once the squashed was cooked, I mashed it before placing in the soup. When the soup was done, I  pureed it in my blender. 

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is this week. I've been busy helping my daughter with the baby. I've been at her house at least one or two days a week depending on everyone's schedule. However, the other night, I was home and felt like meatloaf, but with a twist. In the old Gourmet Magazine they used to have a column called "You Asked for it." In the January 1990 issue someone requested a recipe from a Brooklyn restaurant called Simply Scrumptious. It was a recipe for Turkey Meat Loaves Simply Scrumptious.