One for the Books

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast last night, and of course, it's always wonderful to have everyone together at the same table. Matthew showed up first and kept Smitty occupied. Smitty loves it when Matthew comes over. Matthew seems to have a never-ending capacity for entertaining the cat.

Erik and Mae showed up a little later. Here's Mae putting the finishing touches on her baked brie appetizers before putting them into the oven. They were delicious!

Erik, meanwhile, retired to the living room to watch football and dream of turkey.

Smitty and Gracie had their Thanksgiving earlier in the day. I always cook up the neck and giblets. I pick the meat off the neck and save the broth for my gravy. Then, I chop up the giblets for kitties and serve it up on their special kitty fine china. It always makes their eyes glaze over in ecstasy.

When things got closer, Mae assembled the salads she made. So yummy with goats cheese and pears and a really delicious vinaigrette.

Mae also made a really delicious green bean casserole. She added a special touch of some mashed jalapeno carrots. The flavor was only faintly there, but it really perked up the whole dish. It wasn't until she told me the ingredient that I could really taste it. I know, it sounds strange, but it was fantastic.

This year I broke with a decades-old tradition and tried a new sweet potato recipe. It was really good too, and so much easier than the way I've always done it. The sweet potatoes and red onions were roasted, then combined with fresh rosemary and Parmesan cheese. You can find the recipe right here.

Here's someone who didn't enjoy the dinner as much as we did. 

A few years ago I started smearing Ina Garten's special butter under the skin. It's a cube of butter softened overnight and then mixed with one tablespoon of lemon zest and one tablespoon of fresh thyme leaves. You can sort of see the thyme leaves under the skin in this image. It means less basting...just often enough to keep the skin moistened...which means that the turkey is done faster. It always turns out so juicy and delicious.

Here's a mom's eye view of the table just before the Stanbros dig in.

Here's Mike...he doesn't look half bad after his near brush with death a few weeks ago.

Here's a Matthew's eye view of the table.

Here's the plate of someone who ate way too much. But, on Thanksgiving, you have to, right? It would be rude not to overeat.

After that was cleaned up, we all retired to the floor to moan.

I neglected to take pictures of the two(!) desserts created by the lovely Mae...a delicious apple tart and a pumpkin cheesecake. We gave ourselves a rest before tackling the dessert. And that was it. Another Thanksgiving come and gone. 

Erik and Mae stayed the night because they are going to Eugene for the Civil War game between the waddling University of Oregon Quacks (couldn't resist) and the mighty Oregon State Beavers. (Go Beavs!!)

We take our football very seriously in Oregon.

As for me, I have physical therapy this afternoon, foolishly scheduled before I ate too much the evening before. After that, sewing. Oh yes, and there is the little matter of the dishes in the dishwasher. It's amazing how much someone with a fighting spirit can pack into a dishwasher following a Thanksgiving meal. I think that is next on the agenda.

I'm making a little progress on my Wind in the Whiskers block. After my little whining rant the other day I realized that the only way to tackle this project is to go one step at a time without looking back or forward. Just one little step at a time. It's less stressful and daunting that way. So Wednesday, I made some of the trees:

And the little house.

And I was well on my way to making the purple "furrows" behind and above the clothesline...all 14 pieces of them. One might think that 14 pieces is excessive, but there you go. It is nothing if not extremely detailed.

So, I'll finish making those today and then move onto whatever the next part is. As I said, I'm keeping my eyes on just one piece at a time, so I have no idea what comes next.

I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving.