It's all figured out, thankfully. I think it will be just Rick's mom, Rick and me...maybe. My brother and I are doing well again, thank goodness. They had made plans for dinner at my SIL's cousin's house, but they'll come to us for dessert. And they may just come here anyway. We'll see. My GF did not need heart bypass surgery, thankfully; the doctors put a stent in. She's not allowed to drive for a while and her DH is in the beginning of Alzheimer's, so he cannot drive at all. Rick will go in to bring them down to us when he picks his mother up. My sister and BIL have their dinner with their kids, but they want to come to us for dessert (or have us bring our dessert leftovers and go to their house). They invited us for dinner there, but Rick's mom won't go over there, so we're each on our own. But it's working out OK.
Herb-Roasted Turkey (from Southern Living) along with the gravy
Classic Bread Stuffing (Southern Living)
Party Potatoes
Dried Corn
Ina Garten's Roasted Winter Vegetables
Mom's Cranberry Relish
Braided Peppery Cheese Rolls
Praline Pumpkin Pie
Salted Caramel Chocolate Pecan Pie
Sugar Cookies (roll and cut with a turkey cookie cutter)
Iced Tea and Coffee
A few bottles of wine
I said I was only going to do a smaller turkey this year (about 14 pounds or so), then we got to the store last night and there was a nice 24-pounder just sitting there, waiting for me. I started looking around at the smaller turkeys, but Rick just took Big Tom. He said he knew that's the one I wanted and we love leftovers, so it'll work out. And that means that Big Tom will, once again, be roasted in the Nesco roaster; I'm not using my oven for a huge turkey when I will need both of the ovens for sides. Tradition is tradition, I guess. I know Rick isn't particularly amused that I'm not doing the stuffing in the crock pot, but it makes a ton of stuffing; I promised him crock pot stuffing for Christmas dinner with the crown roast, so he's mollified, if nothing else. The dried corn is a nod to Rick; he'd rather have that than corn pudding. And since he doesn't like Mom's cranberry relish, I bought a can of Ocean Spray sauce just for him.
I'm making mom's cranberry relish this coming Sunday as it should be made ahead of time to give the flavors a chance to hang out together. I'm making enough relish for us, for my sister's dinner, and will freeze the rest for Christmas dinner. I'll make the peppery cheese rolls this coming Sunday, too. And a loaf of sourdough bread; I'm going to need that for the stuffing. I though I had some in the freezer, but evidently, we ate it all.
Pumpkin and pecan pies will be made next Wednesday night.
Rick and I are running over to the winery this Friday night.
We are going to visit with the grands for the day on Saturday. Sarah and I will spend the day in the kitchen. She wants to try her hand at making sticky buns; she's almost nine years old now, so that should be interesting! And her mother has decided to go gluten-free, so we're going to try making GF sticky buns. That should be really interesting. In between waiting for dough to rise a bit, we're also going to be making cut-out sugar cookies, so hopefully, I'll be able to bring home a few of those to tuck into the freezer for Thanksgiving, too. I thought it might be a little much for Sarah to try to get everything in at one time; she sometimes gets out-of-sorts when things get too complicated and my goal is always to keep things simple, but our son says she's all excited about it. If she does get tired of baking, I can just finish things up myself while she takes a break. I try my best to make it all fun for her. And I have all kinds of sprinkles and glitter to take down for the cookies; she's at the age where baking glitter is pretty cool stuff.
It's all about the pretty frostings and the glitter. And I don't care how they look; it's all part of the fun with us.
So I guess that is going to be our Thanksgiving. There will be plenty of leftovers and we can all waddle around the weekend!
Herb-Roasted Turkey (from Southern Living) along with the gravy
Classic Bread Stuffing (Southern Living)
Party Potatoes
Dried Corn
Ina Garten's Roasted Winter Vegetables
Mom's Cranberry Relish
Braided Peppery Cheese Rolls
Praline Pumpkin Pie
Salted Caramel Chocolate Pecan Pie
Sugar Cookies (roll and cut with a turkey cookie cutter)
Iced Tea and Coffee
A few bottles of wine
I said I was only going to do a smaller turkey this year (about 14 pounds or so), then we got to the store last night and there was a nice 24-pounder just sitting there, waiting for me. I started looking around at the smaller turkeys, but Rick just took Big Tom. He said he knew that's the one I wanted and we love leftovers, so it'll work out. And that means that Big Tom will, once again, be roasted in the Nesco roaster; I'm not using my oven for a huge turkey when I will need both of the ovens for sides. Tradition is tradition, I guess. I know Rick isn't particularly amused that I'm not doing the stuffing in the crock pot, but it makes a ton of stuffing; I promised him crock pot stuffing for Christmas dinner with the crown roast, so he's mollified, if nothing else. The dried corn is a nod to Rick; he'd rather have that than corn pudding. And since he doesn't like Mom's cranberry relish, I bought a can of Ocean Spray sauce just for him.
I'm making mom's cranberry relish this coming Sunday as it should be made ahead of time to give the flavors a chance to hang out together. I'm making enough relish for us, for my sister's dinner, and will freeze the rest for Christmas dinner. I'll make the peppery cheese rolls this coming Sunday, too. And a loaf of sourdough bread; I'm going to need that for the stuffing. I though I had some in the freezer, but evidently, we ate it all.
Pumpkin and pecan pies will be made next Wednesday night.
Rick and I are running over to the winery this Friday night.
We are going to visit with the grands for the day on Saturday. Sarah and I will spend the day in the kitchen. She wants to try her hand at making sticky buns; she's almost nine years old now, so that should be interesting! And her mother has decided to go gluten-free, so we're going to try making GF sticky buns. That should be really interesting. In between waiting for dough to rise a bit, we're also going to be making cut-out sugar cookies, so hopefully, I'll be able to bring home a few of those to tuck into the freezer for Thanksgiving, too. I thought it might be a little much for Sarah to try to get everything in at one time; she sometimes gets out-of-sorts when things get too complicated and my goal is always to keep things simple, but our son says she's all excited about it. If she does get tired of baking, I can just finish things up myself while she takes a break. I try my best to make it all fun for her. And I have all kinds of sprinkles and glitter to take down for the cookies; she's at the age where baking glitter is pretty cool stuff.
So I guess that is going to be our Thanksgiving. There will be plenty of leftovers and we can all waddle around the weekend!
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