Thank goodness for Thanksgiving

We are going to cut to the chase pretty quickly here since we have a lot of material to cover.  Thanksgiving is officially over, the turkey has been consumed, pies have been polished off, and plenty of wine has been imbibed.  All in all I would say it was a pretty successful holiday.

We started our Thanksgiving with a self-governed Turkey Trot.  A nice 3.4 mile jog on the trails out near our home.  It was a beautiful morning to have everyone out and about and there were tons of other people working up their appetites along with us.  We came home and had some french toast and started pulling everything together.

The dinner assembly started on Tuesday night.  The key to these multiple dish dinner events is to get as much prep work done ahead of time as possible.  We laid out the menu and figured out what could be made ahead of time, and what would be best served up fresh from the oven.  Here is our menu:  



Turkey
Mashed Potatoes
Rosemary Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Shallots
Green Beans
Pecan Rolls
Cranberry Apple Relish
Pear and Candied Walnut Salad
Memere's Stuffing
Applejack Spiked Hot Cider
Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Mud Pie



There were 6 of us (plus Ellie) for dinner.  This may seem like an aggressive line-up, however, who wants a Thanksgiving dinner with no leftovers? Not this girl.  The make-way-ahead dishes were the Cranberry Sauce and the Mud Pie.

This was a new Cranberry Sauce for us but has definitely earned its place in the regular rotation.  It was so simple and had such great flavor.  We made it 2 days before Thanksgiving and it was all ready to go come dinnertime on Thursday night.

Mud Pie is officially part of our Thanksgiving pie tradition because it is Flick's favorite.  What is not to like about an Oreo crust filled with coffee ice cream and a fudge topping?  You can sub in other types of ice cream (mint chocolate chip and caramel jump out as good options) - but the coffee is the big winner in our household.  Since we had 3 pies in queue, we ended up making this in a non-stick cake pan and it worked out great.

The day before Thanksgiving we started in on the rest of the pies and half of the stuffing.  The stuffing literally cooks all day long, and is SO worth it.  This is the best stuffing ever, we just love it.  This is my Memere's stuffing recipe so it has been in the family for awhile and continues to go strong on the Thanksgiving table.  For the apple pie - we used the food processor with the "slicing" adapter to significantly cut down on the prep time. 





The pumpkin pie was pretty straightforward.  Even though it only requires a single, bottom crust, we made a double crust so that we were sure to have plenty of crust for our slightly large (9 1/2 inch) pie plate.  Mind you, this was determined after we tried with just a single crust and it didn't fit :)  This is why starting early is key!

Allie was in charge of making the Applejack Spiked Hot Cider on Thanksgiving day and it was a big hit.  This is something that you can assemble on the stovetop and leave simmering in the crockpot all day to fill your house with the aroma of hot cider, cinnamon, and cloves.

The turkey is done!

My mom started up the second batch of stuffing just before lunch so it could cook for a full 6 hours on the double boiler.  We were shooting to eat dinner around 5pm so we got our 18 pound turkey in the oven around 1:15.  We cook our turkey in a bag like this one; it cuts down on the cooking time and keeps the bird from drying out too much.  We just used the recipe that came with the oven bag and the flavor and juiciness was perfect.  Our turkey took longer than anticipated (it was still pretty cold and slightly icy when I put it in the oven) so we didn't end up eating until about 6pm, but as everyone kept reminding me, it's not that big of a deal to wait a little while longer for a delicious meal.  Tough to swallow as the chef, but it was definitely worth the wait.

While the turkey was in the oven, we made the mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.  Our pecan rolls needed to bake for 15-20 minutes so we had to wait for the bird to come out of the oven before we could cook them.  The rolls suffered the most from the longer cooking time on the Turkey; they had risen to their full potential by the time the bird was supposed to be ready, and subsequently deflated while the Turkey was hanging in the oven.  They still tasted delicious and were a popular side on the table.

The salad and the green beans were really easy to whip together in the last few minutes before dinner.  I made the dressing and candied walnuts earlier in the morning and just had to slice the pears and toss the lettuce at crunch time.  We kept the green beans simple (just steamed them) so they were really easy to rinse, snap, and steam.

Candied walnuts for the salad

All in all it was an awesome meal with our family and it was fun and only slightly stressful to put it all together.  Remember that table that we ordered awhile back?  Well, it hasn't arrived yet so we made do with our current table and fit just fine.  All the food hung out on a foldable card table and people were free to get up and refill their plates as needed.  What a great holiday!  We have taken down the Halloween/Thanksgiving decorations, Flick went and bought some Christmas lights, and we are working our way into full on Ho Ho Holiday mode :)  I am a total dork this time of year and am so excited for upcoming Christmas's as Ellie gets more and more into the festivities.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I hope you all enjoyed a fabulous meal with your family and friends!