Thursday, December 03, 2009

Thanksgiving Day

I hosted Thanksgiving this year-it was my second time doing it. The first time I did it when Anne was just a little baby, so apparently I enjoy hosting the year I have a baby! It turned out so much better than expected! I bought a pre-cooked turkey. It was Butterball, so I figured that it couldn't be bad tasting even though I was a little suspicious of a pre-cooked, frozen turkey. Let me tell you-I will never buy another kind of turkey again! It was a bit more expensive (about $1.70 a lb vs. $.99 a lb), but well worth it. I just had to thaw it and then throw it in the oven. Totally easy! That took away a lot of stress for me-no looking up recipes, no figuring out how exactly to tie and tuck, no figuring out if there was a bag of giblets to get rid of or it there were metal staples to be taken out. Just thaw and throw in the oven.



This year, I really cooked for me. I wanted this meal to be meaningful to me and one way (well, probably my main way) to do that is through my cooking. I really wanted to cook healthy, whole food, that was representative of the holiday. I found a fabulous cookbook (that has been out of print and I had to jump through more hoops than I can explain right now to get it) that really helped me to pick recipes that fit exactly what I was looking for. So for our meal, I cooked:


-Turkey
-Sourdough Stuffing
-Harvest rice and vegetable loaf
-Roasted Brussels sprouts
-Sweet potato rolls
-Homemade whole berry cranberry and apple sauce

In addition, my family supplied extras like mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, honey and nut squash, and Indian raisin pudding.

It was a delicious meal, that I thoroughly enjoyed. Because of the cookbook I used, I had a game plan too, and was able to break up the tasks of cooking into different time increments (I did a few things the day before, a few that morning and a few 2 hours before dinner). Because of this, the meal was about 99% stress free. Actually, it was more stress free than cooking normal dinner!

In addition to dinner, my family (who is in no way good with structured activities) did little "What I am thankful cards" which were a big hit, thanks to Anne who got everyone into the spirit and fun of it. Thank you Anne!

So here's to a very thankful Thanksgiving dinner!



The meal I cooked-from left to right-Harvest Veggie Loaf, Stuffing, Brussels Sprouts, Rolls, Cranberry sauce, Turkey

Jamie enjoying his first Thanksgiving dinner (squash and some mashed potatoes)

The table with Andrina and Anne waiting patiently.


Our Thanksgiving tree, which we have now done 2 years in a row and is becoming one of our traditions.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Nicole said...

Mike & I love the turkeys that you just pop into the oven without having to mess with. Every once in a while, we'll get one for ourselves.
Happy to hear that your Thanksgiving was stress-free and wonderful!