I know, I’m way too late for this post. It’s already Friday. BLACK Friday. But Happy Thanksgiving anyway!! I hope you all had a wonderful time!

We had a normal menu this year, although I convinced my mom to increase the sweet potato casserole by 50%. I must say that I hate the term “casserole” because it sounds like something nasty. These sweet potatoes are DELICIOUS. You all have probably had something similar–it’s sweet potato goop topped with brown sugar and pecans. Some varieties include marshmallows. It’s almost too sinfully dessert-like to include on a dinner plate.

This year, I piled my first plate with so much food that I couldn’t fit corn or cranberry sauce (we use the gelatin kind because it is delicious). It was tragic.

I also jumped on board making a second dessert because mom’s pumpkin cheesecake pie turned out dodgy. I wanted to do another pumpkin thing because we had extra pumpkin anyway, and I actually had an intense pumpkin bar recipe from Ashley that got mysteriously left on the desk in my Indianapolis apartment. Drat. Some Internet searching discovered several recipes that reported a cake-like result. I finally settled on Paula Deen’s pumpkin bar recipe.

I kid you not, there is NO BUTTER IN IT. Well, there is some in the icing mix, but I didn’t make the icing. Why make icing when it’s on sale for $1.49 at Kroger? Yeah, right.

They turned out exactly like in the picture, and they tasted great! They were still very cake-like, though a little more dense, and perhaps manageable to eat with your hands. But forks are much more clean.

Breakfast tomorrow? Probably.

(That’s the picture from the Food Network site, by the way. I don’t want to have another storm confusion moment.)

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with friends and family!