Thanksgiving Feast

Again I know a tad let especially since its already mid December, but here is my thanksgiving spread. This is the third year I have cooked the entire meal, now I admit I had some help with chopping and pealing but I was the recipe decision maker. (For the select few who follow my blog regularly, notice in the last picture that I’m basically wearing my nerd costume from Halloween but as an actual outfit)

Now for the food. My mom suggested this year we cook turkey breasts instead of a full turkey and ever since I saw Rachel Ray do it on the Food Network do it, I’ve wanted to try. So it was turkey breast with cranberry, pistachio stuffing. For some reason we still don’t have a meat thermometer, every year we stare at the turkey and poke it to guess if it’s done and every year we never buy a thermometer. Hopefully we gain a few brain cells by next holiday season.

As for sides, cranberry sauce is my favorite and I always get too excited and make too much. When I saw Alton Brown (apparently food network has a great impact on me) make it from scratch, I was converted to a “from scratch only” cranberry sauce server. Next I think my second favorite of the feast was the balsamic glazed mini onions. I’m a tad partial to cooked onions and the balsamic glaze just took them over the top.

Moving on we have mashed sweet potatoes. For me, they are hundred times better than the normal white version, plus I’m not a fan of the whole marshmallow topping thing. I'm sorry but I believe they should just stick to smores (or my smore ice cream pie). The secret to these particular potatoes was rum and orange liquor (yes I managed to booze up the potatoes). The other stuffing that wasn’t actually stuffed anywhere was a sausage and apple cornbread stuffing. Again who can complain when there's sausage?

Here is Andrea’s plate of food, there’s the green beans who unfortunately do not have a photo solo. Up to this point all photos were taken by Andrea (I was a tad busy).

Dessert was pumpkin pie brought by my aunt and pecan pie that I made. OK so time for slight tangent: When I am on the elliptical at the gym, I read girly magazines and since the gym lacks a huge selection, I read practically every article. Every year during this season without fail, these magazines have an article on the “smart food choices for the holidays.” When it comes to dessert, pumpkin pie always wins since it has something like 300 calories whereas pecan pie has over 700 per slice. Do you think this stops me? Of course not but I really wish they would stop reminding me.

Finally after all this food, there’s still more, my version of hot white wine. I thought hot wine was only for red wine but I tried its sister for the first time this summer in Prague. Still just as warm and comforting but a lighter citrusy version. Of course I didn’t use a recipe and just threw spices, ginger, and fruit in the pot with white wine.

Well that was it, all the multiple course of food. Sorry that was such a long post, but Thanksgiving is probably the most food centered holiday out there. I will leave you with a lovely picture of the “kids.”