What a quiet little Thanksgiving weekend we had, just me and the husband. We woke up and got all dressed up and walked over to the church that's now a cafe and bar.
It was a tiny bit strange to be surrounded by strangers on Thanksgiving, instead of family and friends.
But, there were mimosas and a mostly traditional meal (with the addition of tamales, although I couldn't actually bring myself to eat one on turkey day) and for the first time ever actually taking a nap after lunch instead of just talking about how nice a nap would be..
It was nice to get to have turkey and stuffing and all that without having to do one bit of the shopping or cooking or cleaning, but I have to admit it wasn't exactly right. Little things like the sweet potatoes with marshmellows were too runny, and the green bean casserole wasn't at all like my mom used to make. The funny thing is I kept thinking each dish was wrong, and husband thought it was exactly like his mom made (except her cornbread stuffing is much better!).
A couple of years ago I cooked my first (and only) Thanksgiving, and it was fun to collect up all the recipes from my mom and find ones on the internet that matched what I remembered. Here's, for me, the "essentials" of a Thanksgiving meal, and cooking it isn't too hard since my mom was sort of a Sandra Lee, before Sandra Lee of course:
- Turkey and gravy
- Cranberry sauce (right out of the can)
- Stove-top stuffing (jazzed up with some chicken and chicken broth)
- Honey Glazed Ham (I actually like it better than turkey)
- Green bean and artichoke casserole or artichoke balls
- Baked macaroni and cheese
- Sweet potaoto cassserole with mini-marshmellows
- Pumpkin pie
- Pecan pie
I've already baked a pumpkin pie, and now I think I'm going to cook each of the other dishes one by one until I get Thanksgiving out of my system.
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