Tackled the Feast

Although the thought of doing Thanksgiving without any family this year made me feel quite sad and lonely - the thought of getting to make everything and tackle the feast cheered me right back up :) strange, i know...

Here's whats on our traditional Thanksgiving Menu:
Tur-duc-hen

Grandma's Cornbread Dressing

Rice Dressing

Green Beans

Sweet Potato Casserole

Cranberry Sauce

Rolls

Gravy

Pecan Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Everything is done and waiting to be baked {& smoked}... here's how I did it solo:

Delegated the Tur-Duc-Hen to Charles - He will put it in the smoker early tomorrow morning

Last Night I had my sweet friend, Shane over and we conqured the massive cornbread dressing recipe from Charles' grandmother together {i kept half and she kept half} the recipe is pretty extensive with three different types of meats and lots of chopped veggies - but totally worth it!We also made the pie fillings for the pumpkin pies (we stored them in ziploc bags and plan to pour them in store bought pie crusts and bake them Thanksgiving morning first thing!)

This Morning: baked the sweet potatoes and let them cool while I was at my "last chance workout" before I pig out on Thanksgiving. When I got home and of course with Audrey's help, I made the sweet potato casserole, pecan pie filling (same ziploc strategy as before) and Rice Dressing meat mixture.... now that one was a labor of love for my hubby.. poor guy - his only Thanksgiving request and it has to be the nastiest thing I have ever had to make... don't get me wrong - the outcome is yummy - but did you know that it is made with chicken livers and gizzards?? SO GROSS to deal with.. but I love him so I did it anyway. This recipe was pretty extensive as well - starting with boiling the yucky chicken parts, grinding them up and adding ground pork sausage, ground beef, onions, celery and bell pepper.. roux, chicken stock.. etc etc. Oh and I also poured the cranberry sauce into a dish and put it in the fridge so it can get nice and cold - this is the one thing I took a short cut on and certainly took advantage of the canned stuff ~ I like the whole berry cranberry sauce.

Tomorrow: all that is left to do is pour the pie fillings into the pie shells and bake, bake the ready-to-go sweet potato casserole, add broth to and bake the cornbread dressing, cook some green beans with a little bacon and pop the rolls in the oven... and last but not least make some gravy :)

DONE!

I really enjoyed planning and cooking this "mostly from scratch" Thanksgiving meal - It was a lot of fun for me to figure all of this out and to know that I can do it... An old fashioned, Thanksgiving dinner is what I've been looking forward to all year! Gobble Gobble!