Thanksgiving 2012

My sister and I decided that with all of the dietary issues several of the family members have to try and find some new versions of the standard dishes we normally would have for the thanksgiving meal. So we started scouring the web for some ideas and from the comments during the meal we did pretty good. After finding the recipes we were going to try we made our plan of action and decided the cooking order based on temps and times. So here is our meal plan of action and the links embedded in the names for where we found recipes.

We thought it would be smart to make our pies first...Stephanie made the crusts then we started on the fillings. The requested items were family favorites pumpkin and pecan... Stephanie broke out the trusty better homes and garden cook book for these... I took on the pumpkin and she did pecan.. Now our family is kinda leary when we say we are making pecan pie... Seems she and I tried to make a festive one once and well no one appreciated our festive green colored pecan pie...It has become an inside family joke.. well much to the family's relief these were made the normal boring way nothing festive here. (I really wanted to try red or orange this year)

Green bean casserole : this was just awesome and I think will be come the standard from now on. Fresh green beans washed and snapped by my oldest son ( which he did willingly so his aunt would make him some coffee) while I worked on the mushroom sauce...I will definitely be making this sauce more often. It was easy and tasted great.

Mashed Potato cakes : these were interesting to make... By the fifth one think I had it down...definitely a learning curve but they turned out great. After seeing the size they turned out I would add more potatoes and make them bigger.

Maple Sweet potato cups: this recipe had mixed reviews, it totally deviated from the normal yams and marshmallows. Some really enjoyed the meringue topping and others said marshmallows.  We did have another option for the sweet potatoes that I will be trying some time. Maybe for Christmas dinner to go with the requested Mashed potato meatloaf..

Creamed corn with bacon: this was a WOW recipe and no leftovers. Will definitely be making this again for any meal.

Roasted broccoli in a lemon garlic sauce: this was really good and would have been great if we hadn't over roasted.. Since both of us girls had our gall bladders removed some of the raw veggies we loved don't love us back anymore so we had to find some alternate ideas so we could still enjoy them.. We did forgo the pine nuts in the recipe because well at 1 am when we were last minute shopping we just could not find the pine nuts even though we circled the aisles several times. My youngest son cut up the broccoli in exchange for his aunt to make him a coffee.

Cranberry sauce: this one we totally did by the seat of our pants... Frozen cranberries, little bit of sugar ( which wasn't near enough) and some water... Yes we added more sugar later....

Stuffing : we so totally cheat on this but well one can not go wrong with stove top. However there is a funny story involved... While we were on the previously mentioned last minute 1 am shopping trip neither one of us could remember if mom could eat the turkey flavor or cornbread flavor..so we got one of each...of course we had to walk around a bit to find them and we were totally distracted by the directional arrows taped to the floor.. One way aisles in a store? Wow... we were totally giggly by this time and the arrows weren't helping. Kept waiting for one of the many restockers to yell at us for going the wrong way... and now the next funny part...mom arrives mid morning and says "I brought four boxes of stuffing where do you want them?". Stephanie and I look at each other and just start laughing...well neither of us remembered the conversation where she had told us she had the stuffing...

And the turkey... Ultimately it was decided to inject the big bad boy with marinade and deep fat fry it.... Now where was the injector... That's right.. The injector was 3 hours away at my house...so this was the real reason for the 1 am shopping trip...after several walk arounds we finally stumbled upon the marinades... And for the bonus they came with injectors!

Another thing about this last minute shopping trip... We forgot the list... So here we are standing at the front of the store racking our brains as to what we had written down..because that is why you write a list right? We managed to remember most of it and her wonderful husband sent us the list as well...

Everyone enjoyed the food and had a great time...the only one missing was my husband who had to stay behind due to other obligations.. However the boys did a great job keeping us entertained in the father's absence. Stephanie and I are very proud of the fact we only opened one canned item..and that was the pumpkin...everything else was fresh, frozen or made from scratch...and really didn't take us all that long to make.