Thanksgiving Food Fest!

Town + Country’s Palo Alto office recently had an in-house snack fest. Our very own Amy Horning and Christy Bruegger made a delightful array of festive goodies that we’re dying to share with you!

Picture our table loaded with chocolate chip pumpkin bread, goat cheese log rolled in dried craisins & pecans served with crackers, soft ginger snap cookies served with a small pumpkin filled with cream cheese pumpkin dip… It was incredible!

I decided to try these recipes at home for myself. And if my “practice run” went as well as our office treats had, my plan was to bring them to the table for our family Thanksgiving.

I struggled a bit in the baking aisle before I figured out that molasses is actually near the syrup and not the sugar! When I got home, I coaxed my husband, Caden, into helping me by carving the pumpkin while I feverishly multi tasked in the kitchen baking goodies and figuring out how to make dinner at the same time – all with almost no counter space! On about my third batch of ginger snaps, I decided Caden could roll the last two-dozen. It turns out he’s a pretty good helper (he’s a keeper).

About three hours later it was all pretty much done … and I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. After slaving over these treats for so long, all I wanted to do was admire our hard work. Caden on the other and was happy to bring it all to work and use his colleagues as guinea pigs.

Their verdict? Everything had been devoured. I will definitely be making this for Thanksgiving! Finally, I can contribute to the food festivities! If you’re searching for something to bring to dinner next week, look no more! Here are Amy’s recipes are at the links below … ENJOY!

Pumpkin bread. We substituted nuts and raisins for 1 cup chocolate chips!

The goat cheese was a log of plain chèvre from Costco. Roll it in diced craisins and pecans, then wrapped it up in cling wrap tightly overnight. Serve with crackers.

 

Ginger Cookies with Pumpkin Dip
 – From Julie Woods via Amy Horning

 

Cookies

 

¾ cup shortening
¾ cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
½ cup molasses
4 tsp baking soda
4 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
4 cups flour

 

Mix ingredients, and roll into balls. Bake for 10 minutes at 350. Makes 5 dozen or more.

 

Pumpkin dip

 

2 cups powdered sugar
1 block (8 oz) cream cheese (room temp)
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger

 

Combine sugar and cream cheese until well blended in a mixer. Add remaining ingredients. Refrigerate. Serve in a small carved out pumpkin.