I managed to go grocery shopping today. Nothing like cutting things a little close for Thanksgiving. Now there is a big turkey in the house, and LOTS of ingredients for all the usual Thanksgiving Day fare. Tim’s parents won’t be joining us this year so, gasp, I’ll be doing the cooking myself. As I sat down to think about the menu, I realized how completely spoiled I’ve become over the years as a “guest” and not “hostess” for the major holiday meals.
I pondered some serious questions…
Do I have a favorite stuffing/dressing recipe?
How do you make Grandma’s Pistachio salad?
If I have five dishes to make, in addition to the turkey, how do I get them all done with just one oven?
How long does it take a frozen turkey to thaw?
And most importantly…
How many desserts do I need to make for a family of seven?
Obviously we need to take the rest of the week off from school. There’s far too much work to do in order to get ready for Thanksgiving to continue school. I mean, priorities are priorities! The children have been informed that we will be spending all day Wednesday baking and preparing for Thanksgiving. I plan to pull down my old November Family Fun magazines and let the kids enjoy some Thanksgiving Day crafts. The kitchen is sparkling (Rachel and David did a wonderful job cleaning up this evening) so I should have plenty of room to work on T-Day meal prep. My friend, Leah, emailed me several of her family’s favorite dishes this afternoon. They look delicious. Tim’s office often lets out early on holidays so there should be a nice festive air in the house by the late afternoon.
Sarah is ready to make some fun crafts.
I’m excited and ready for a holiday weekend!
What about you? Do you have traditional dishes that you serve EVERY year, without fail? I’m still searching for the perfect dressing recipe. If you have one, please share. I need yours, Mom! Oh and what is everyone making for dessert besides pumpkin pie?
When I was growing up we often celebrated Thanksgiving with our dear friends, the Smith family. Becky was an amazing cook and was famous for her Thanksgiving pies. She literally made a dozen pies, of assorted kinds, for our family meal. As a newly wed and young mother, one year I tried to copy her and create a Smith Pies Thanksgiving. It was a lot of work, but I managed to pull it off.
The next year I was all set to host Christmas Day dinner with my parents and siblings. Instead, I broke my ankle (while pregnant) on Christmas Eve Day.
No doubt it was the pressure of making all those pies.
Kathy
APPLE pie, for sure. My daughter now makes ours, though I’ve had Mrs. Smith’s pies! I didn’t know you knew her; we always find her pies in the frozen food section of our grocery store, and she really does make great pies!
HI! I’d love to see what recipes you end up having success with! My mother in law is in town but flying out Thursday so we’re having Thanksgiving brunch this year…no turkey! Oh dear, what would Samoset say? Look forward to hearing about your day!
ARC
No breaking a leg this year, dear Katherine. Happy Thanksgiving!! Lots of blessings, eh! I love you and yours. Aunt Kate
This year We are making Thanksgiving shape sugar cookies and frosting them red, yellow, orange and white. so we will see how those turn out. Happy Thanksgiving!!
Ok. No breaking any arms or legs this year! We did all of the grocery shopping yesterday as well. And, today we cooked and cooked all day long! We just finished up an hour or so ago. We cleaned the house pretty good last weekend and I’m actually hoping to lounge around and enjoy the parade tomorrow!
I had a turkey emergency. Seems one of my young men kept putting the turkey back in the freezer when he found it in the fridge. I should have checked….but I assumed it would be o.k. It was a 28 lb ice cube…we had lasagna and had a great day….just being together.
My children insist that I make banana cream and coconut cream pies from my Mom’s recipe. I have tweaked it so that I can do it in the microwave faster and easier than in a double boiler. I made stuffing/dressing this year from a recipe from the Crockpot Lady’s blog. It was very good, pretty easy, and got some compliments.
Since this is the day after Thanksgiving we are taking it easy–no black friday shopping for us.
We had pumpkin cheesecake, apple pie, angel food cake and blackberry cobbler. We also have a cranberry jello salad that I often eat for dessert!! Yum! I do have some of the recipes on my blog.
i have been a guest too often as well. but i have hosted Christmas a couple times where i didn’t do a turkey. i enjoy that better.
i made an eggnog pie once that was really good.