Thanksgiving and Random Things

Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful - and that you remembered to actually be thankful about something! I definitely was thankful for my family and enjoyed the day off as well :). Some of the things I made as pictured below...

Making the feet... I was supposed to save the wedge cutouts for the beaks but I gave those to my bird instead because he loves carrots...

The whipped cream cheese stuffing and a partially completed penguin

Four of the little dressed up guys

Credit: this penguin appetizer recipe

Pumpkin and Dark chocolate bread in its almost-complete loaf form

And here's what it looks like on the inside when it's sliced...

Also, side note for all the nerds out there, I totally thought about volume integrals and how these slices could be useful for an approximation... please don't judge... :) Oh and I was reminded of how for a research project once I actually cut out graphs (that were too complex to integrate by hand) and weighed them to find the area... the things we do in the name of science. :D

Credit: I modified the recipe for a Swirled Pumpkin and Dark chocolate bread from a Better Homes and Garden magazine (originally credited to Joy Wilson of Joy the Baker) - thanks BHG and Joy Wilson! 

Note: "modified" includes the follow changes - cut the amount of sugar by a half cup, used semi-sweet morsels instead of regular dark chocolate, changed the amount of cocoa powder (and used hot chocolate mix instead), decreased the amount of butter by about 1/4, substituted soymilk for buttermilk and added extra, used extra pumpkin, used extra spices, changed the way I mixed the ingredients, and the pumpkin to chocolate batter ratio... just in case I post my version of the recipe later and there are questions about copyright issues... how many changes are enough to make it no longer the same recipe? Does anyone know?