11.26.2008

Thanksgiving Menu

This is what I am making to contribute to our family's Thanksgiving meal:

- Turkey (eek! hope I do a good job! Katie and I made one together a few weeks ago that turned out great so...here we go again!)

- Roasted Butternut Squash - see http://ericandbetsyshilling.blogspot.com/2008/10/glorious-butternut-squash-2-ways.html for ideas. I am making the squash the 1st way - delish.

- Fruit Salad - yummy fresh apples that I got at the farmer's market, with mandarin oranges, bananas, pineapple - with just a little plain yogurt to bring it all together

- Homemade dinner rolls (Meg is making the honey-butter to go with them) - still searching the perfect recipe out. I think I'm going to use pioneer woman's 'No-Knead Dinner Rolls' recipe...I'll let you know where we land on that one. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/11/pw_dinner_rolls_-_no_kneading_required/

- Cranberry sauce - hardly goes on my list to "make", b/c I will not lie, I am using a can of whole berry cranberries from the store. I do love cranberries though...

Sounds like fun, huh? I can't wait to get started. Tonight I am making the dinner roll dough to let it rise, then it will have to rise again in the morning before baking into delicious, warm, clover rolls. I am also prepping the turkey (I will be honest, this is the scariest part of everything I have to do. I might need to enlist Eric's help with the whole pulling out the innards, sticking my arm in a poultry carcass... umm? yes, excuse me, I would like to know - why can't the turkey come already de-yuckified? Oh - you say that's what my husband is for? I will let him know.) Thanksgiving meal is all about the sides for me anyway. Whether some turkey makes it onto my plate isn't very relevant to me...except this year, I bought an organic, free-range turkey so I will have to at least get a bite or two for comparison and (yes, Dad) protein purposes. Oh - I will also be roasting the butternut squash tonight and perhaps a few sweet potatoes, I haven't decided yet. The squash will warm back up tomorrow beautifully, so it can easily be done tonight.

Tomorrow morning, I will get up early to 1) throw the turkey in the oven with all of the cut up apples and onions and butter and parsley & seasonings in/on it 2) take the dough out of the refrigerator to let it rise again, so it can be baking by mid-morning 3) start chopping all of the fruit for the salad except the bananas. they are last minute. adding the yogurt is last minute too - otherwise it gets all "soupy" from the juices 4) what's left? see - it is so easy to divide and conquer the feast with family members. I'm sure I'll have time to catch another episode or two of 30-Rock on netflicks with Eric while we wait. Maybe if I'm really good, I'll run to the gym to get in a pre-Thanksgiving work-out. But that's only if I'm really good and the kitchen is under control by a long shot. As we need to be in the car, on our way to Josh and Meg's, by 11:30 am, I think I'll wait until the afternoon to get a nice Thanksgiving walk or something like that in. We are eating a little earlier than the traditional 2-4 pm time frame, because that is exactly when the girls' nap is and we want everyone to be together (and preferably not cranky...) :) We also figured out that if we eat at 12-1 pm then we can all hang out, watch football, go for a walk, and eat AGAIN at 5-6 pm! Leave it to us to figure out the way to get the most out of the food! ;) The rest of the spread that Meg & Mom/Dad are making include: mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, corn casserole, green bean casserole, wild rice (from MN!), and for dessert? Warm, homemade apple crisp (made with local, Macintosh apples) topped with creamy, vanilla ice-cream.

Well, that is the plan - we'll see how it goes! But I know that even if I dry out the turkey, burn the squash, make hockey pucks for rolls, and forget the fruit, at the end of the day, this is a celebration giving thanks and enjoying fellowship with dearly loved family and friends!! How blessed I am!

*Just between you and me, though, I'm glad food is such a part of fellowship!* ;)



HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

7 comments:

test it comm said...

Sounds like quite the meal. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Unknown said...

So, how did it go!?? :)

Betsy, Eric, and Sophia said...

Thanks Kevin - I know Canadian Thanksgiving was a while ago now, but I hope you had a good one too. ;) Thanks for reading.

Betsy, Eric, and Sophia said...

Erika - it was great! I will post with a couple of pics I took. Everything turned out wonderful and it was such a fun weekend. I hope you had a good one too!!

Jay Adams said...

The Turkey was fantastic...everything was wonderful...Thanks so much betsy for making Thanksgiving so tasty and fun. we all have so much to be thankful for don't we....

Anonymous said...

what's corn caserole? do you make that? i'm intrigued! miss you! xoxo tiff

Betsy, Eric, and Sophia said...

Oh Tiff - corn casserole is delish! You would love it. I will have to make it and post it - it is basically corn, Jiffy corn mix, some yogurt, eggs...hmm, what else. Its like the most textural, moist cornbread-sorta. super yummy!