Thanksgiving

By now everyone's Thanksgiving is history, unless, of course, you still have guests.  Matthew is still here and will go back to school tomorrow.  We've thoroughly enjoyed having him here.  I hadn't seen Erik and Mae since Erik's birthday at the beginning of October, and so I really enjoyed seeing them too.  They are OSU Beavers fans, and most Saturday's are taken up watching football either at OSU or at home.  (Mae is an OSU graduate.)

My family insists on the exact same dinner every year.  If I even suggest changing anything, I get rounds of boos.  A few years ago, I started making everything the same, but trying one new recipe each time.  A few have stood the test of time (my roasted vegetables come to mind); but since I do the whole thing without help, there's only so much I'm willing to take on.  This year, for some reason, I forgot about trying a new recipe.  Mae was the only one who noticed. 

The regulars on the menu include turkey, mushroom and bacon stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes with a crunchy streusel topping, garlic mashed potatoes, and some form of vegetable.  The vegetables might be roasted vegies or the classic green bean casserole that most people make from cream of mushroom soup and French-fried onions.  Except for the French-fried onions (which cannot be improved upon), I make mine from scratch.  It is delicious:  fresh green beans, a mushroom "sauce," lots and lots of fresh mushrooms, and those great French-fried onions.  (I could eat them straight from the can.  And I do.)

I did, however, try a new method for roasting the turkey this year.  I usually stuff it and put it in the oven for about half an hour until it gets nice and warm.  Then I peel the end from a stick of butter and rub the butter all over the skin.  I continue to do this about every twenty minutes until the turkey is done.  It's very labor intensive. 

This year, I made a butter from a room-temperature stick, a tablespoon of fresh thyme, and a tablespoon of lemon zest.  I mashed that all together and then rubbed globs of it under the skin of the turkey.  Whatever butter was leftover was rubbed all over the outside of the turkey skin.  My goal was to avoid all that basting, and it WORKED!  I'll never do it any other way again.  Even after letting the turkey rest for half an hour after removing it from the oven, it was so moist it was literally dripping.  Before putting it into the oven, I poured chicken broth into the roasting pan so that the pan drippings didn't burn up.  I had to add more about halfway through.  The gravy was equally delicious.
 
The only other thing I do for Thanksgiving is to make a cranberry-cherry marmalade from fresh cranberries and dried cherries.  Erik and I both love the jellied canned ones too, and so the Thanksgiving joke in our family is the dish of jellied cranberries that still look like the inside of the can.  We don't care.  We must have both kinds.  I've taken to slicing them just to hide the ribs.  And for dessert, we have a bourbon pumpkin tart with a streusel topping.  (Do you get that I love streusel toppings?)

So that was our Thanksgiving meal.  I was trying to remember, but with a few exceptions, I've made the Thanksgiving feast every year of our 35 year marriage.  I think maybe twice we went to someone else's house; but after the second time, I said "never again."  I love cooking the Thanksgiving meal, and so I never want to give up that pleasure.  I suppose the day will come when I'll be ready for someone else to take over.  When grandchildren come along, I imagine the tradition will naturally pass to their parents.  Erik and Mae occasionally make a second meal on Friday, and we've joined them for that.  They are both good cooks, and so it's fun to see what they do with the meal too.

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving dinner as much as we did.  As I said in my earlier post, Fun Fact Friday Freebie will be back next week.  It's the time of year when I announce the year-end giveaway.  I'll be taking all the comments from previous FFFF posts and putting them together for one big drawing that will include a nice grand prize in addition to the regular fat quarter.  I'll be deciding on the prize this week and I'll announce it soon, so stay tuned.  The grand prize FFFF drawing will take place on the last Friday of the year, which happens to fall on December 31st!  New Year's Eve!  Doesn't that seem just perfect?