It sure was nice to have 4 days off, even if a large chunk of that time was spent cooking and baking and standing on my feet for long periods of time. It was worth it in the end. We had a “rebel” Thanksgiving in that Jake and I planned to celebrate it on Saturday instead of the traditional Thursday. It was going to be Jake, myself, his three kids and Jake’s mom. And then it got moved to Jake’s mom’s house for the extra room. And then his sister and her family were invited. Then I invited a friend and my parents. And so on and so forth. We ended up with a gathering of about 16 people and a large spread of food to be had. Good food, good times, good company. Things I’m thankful for.
I’m a bad food blogger though since I didn’t take a single photo of anything that I made. But here’s a list, with links to recipes I used:
– For dessert I forgo-ed the traditional in favor of Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting from Brown Eyed Baker. They were heavenly. Very moist and very delicious. They will be made again.
– I made this Green Bean Casserole from the Pioneer Woman. I didn’t use pimentos, I added Parmesan cheese and I used French’s cheddar cheese fried onions as my topper.
– I made a traditional cornbread stuffing and used Julian Apple Bread in addition to cornbread in the stuffing and it had a nice, sweet, slight apple flavor.
– I made the best mashed potatoes ever, taking another hint from the Pioneer Woman to use a whole brick of cream cheese in the potatoes. Man, was it good.
– I brined our turkey overnight (again, I used a turkey brine recipe from the Pioneer Woman – quite a trend this year – except I used lemon rinds) and stuffed it with lemons from our tree for a nice, moist turkey.
Other stuff we had: Jake’s sister brought yams, ham, rolls and macaroni and cheese. We cheated with our gravy – she brought some already made gravy, dumped it into the turkey dripping and served that. It was good, though a little too thin for my tastes, but still good. Jake’s mom made some awesome deviled eggs which were gone every early in the afternoon.
Hope everyone had a lovely holiday! I’ll be posting some restaurant reviews this week – yay!
I love rebel Thanksgivings! Invite Billy Idol and it’s complete.
I also saw Pioneer Woman put cream cheese into her mashed potatoes and my jaw dropped. It sounds so decadent.
Hi Darlene –
I’ve added a little bit of cream cheese to mashed potatoes before – heating them up with milk before putting them in the potatoes – but I hadn’t tried to add a whole brick before. Man, they were so good. It was so evil and delicious all at once.