Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was fun! I was on vacation so I refused to do anything strenous, just read about 4 books, ate like a pig and tried out a couple of bookmarked recipes (to facilitate the aforementioned eating).

And for all you people who are sick of pumpkin pies and over-eating during the holidays I give you the perfect holiday dessert - pumpkin flan each serving of which is only a 100 calories. If I have a dessert weakness it's custard in any form, flans, caramel custard, creme brulee, so of course I had to try this out! And it was superb, all the wholesome deliciousness of pumpkins co-mingling with the richness of custard, caramel and a gentle hint of spice. A perfect recipe to flummox your guests with, who'd have thought of pumpkin + flan together huh?!

The pumpkin puree I used wasnt finely pureed so I got a chewier texture than flan generally has, if you dont like that I'd suggest giving the puree a little whirl in the food processor. And since the recipe was such a big hit the first time, I just had to make it again - the second time around I added about 1 tbsp. of orange rind and served with vanilla ice cream. The plates were licked clean, and my guests were truly thankful!

What did you guys do/ eat for Thanksgiving? For the international visitors, how was your weekend? And did anyone score any great Black Friday deals? I'm the worst bargain shopper, I get easily overwhelmed and end up browsing without buying anything. This time, keeping with the tradition, I bought a winter coat at one of those few, few, very few stores without a Black Friday sale. Le sigh.

To add to my frustrations, I decided to sign up for the NaNoWriMo this month i.e. committing myself to writing a 50,000 word novel in November. The first 2 days went by in a welter of typing. It's the 11th day and according to the schedule I should have written approx 19000 words by the end of today. Instead I have 4700. Four. Fricking. Thousand. And all of them nauseating. It seems every time my characters open their mouths the sound that comes out is mwaaah-wah-wah, I'm boring myself with the story so far. Even the characters names bore me. I proudly put the badge up on my blog the first couple of days but have since taken it down in shame.

As an aside- it doesnt help that I also managed to read two mind-blowingly amazing books by the talented Laura Kinsale. Just comparing her prose next to my driveling garbage makes me want to take a cleaver to my computer- or atleast my story. Bah! I generally tend not to review the books which greatly move me (I only managed the time traveller's wife and I only got it right the second time). Kinsale's books are in that category, so will try to review but cannot promise it, I never manage to get the emotional content right.

Because of all the unneeded frustrations I needed something simple and satisfying to eat today. So, I settled on a grilled crunchy peanut butter, jam and banana sandwich. With a puddle of golden honey drizzled on the bananas (because I use sugar-free jam and I needed to amp up the sweetness).

I have not calmed down yet. But, lunch sure was comforting.