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Harvest Delight


I know that there are Christmas decorations in stores, Christmas ads on TV, Christmas music on the radio, parties being planned, Christmas cards in the works but it's just too early for me.  There are six less days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year because Thanksgiving runs late so now everyone is in a panic but I'm just not feeling it.  I feel like I ought to be in the Christmas spirit but I'm not there yet. This is harvest season!  I know I no longer have all that canning to do with a garden and orchard to tend to anymore but I still can't stop enjoying the harvest season. Would you believe I've been to two harvest dinners recently?  Now that I live in a urban environment, people are inviting me to harvest dinners.  It's fun to pretend you're cooking up a feast from all your fruits of labor, even if you did just purchase it all at your local market instead of digging it out of your gardens.  But it's still a good excuse to have a dinner party. 


My brother-in-law served a wonderful dinner at their house and made meatloaf and mashed potatoes along with delicious appetizers, salad and my sister made sticky toffee pudding for dessert.  Notice my name on my place card to complete each place setting. 


I really liked these fall leaves tortilla chips from Trader Joes


along with the table projecting a lovely fall glow. 


And then our neighbor, Karen, had a harvest dinner for the neighborhood at her house with another gorgeous fall table setting.


She split us up in three groups and did three separate dinner parties for the neighborhood.  She just loves to entertain and we love going over to her house.  First, she served appetizers and pumpkin martinis.


We had a couple of things to celebrate, the first being the new addition to the neighborhood, her new labradoodle puppy, named Lizzy.  Here she is wearing her Halloween costume. 


I wrote about the last time we were invited over to Karen's house for the funeral of her previous dog here.  We got our inspiration for remodeling our deck from being over at her house and seeing her deck.  We also were celebrating another neighbor's house selling in only two days but they plan to move close by and stay in the neighborhood.  That involved a champagne toast after dinner with dessert of pumpkin towers. 


We could hardly eat this dessert since we were all so full from the dinner, appetizers and drinks but they were very festive, tasty and made for a great photo.  These were made of pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.  Karen let us all take our leftover desserts home with us.  The dinner menu started with a delicious pumpkin soup made with some cilantro and peppers to add a little bit of kick to it. 


Here is Karen dishing up the soup.


 We also had salad, roasted squash and brussel sprouts with a main entree of chicken and dumplings. 


I was glad I didn't eat much during the day to prepare myself for this harvest feast.  My next feast will be Thanksgiving and I can't wait.  I love Thanksgiving.  That's why I can't get in the Christmas spirit yet because Thanksgiving is still two weeks away.  I want to just enjoy fall for now.  We are lucky to have mild weather so we can enjoy all the beauty that fall has to offer, unlike other parts of the country who are having blizzards and snow storms already.  If you are reading this, I hope you have a harvest dinner you can attend or host one yourself.  It's a great excuse to invite friends over and have a party to enjoy this wonderful time of year.  Cheers to a delightful harvest dinner. 




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