For Thanksgiving this year, my family was traveling to Ohio to be with my mom's relatives and celebrate my grandma's 80th birthday. I had to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving so Jamie and I couldn't travel to Ohio and we had his family come to our house for dinner. Luckily Jamie's brother, Aaron, and Jamie cooked Thanksgiving dinner the last two years so they were experts at preparing the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. All I was responsible for was making my family's normal dishes: Sweet Potato casserole and BBQ Green Beans. I also made a Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle that was pretty tasty. Jamie and Aaron also made a pecan pie and a pumpkin pie and Jamie's mom made their famous asparagus casserole.
The one unfortunate event of the day was the dressing/stuffing. Jamie tried a new recipe that called for 6 cups of chicken stock (which in hindsight is way too much) and the stuffing ended up being a very soupy mess. It baked for over an hour and still couldn't absorb all of is liquid. It was a Thanksgiving disaster (for Jamie, not me, I don't even like stuffing). But did you know that it's stuffing when it's in the bird and dressing when it's not in the bird? So I guess this was actually dressing because it was baked in a pan in the oven. One of the good things about Thanksgiving was the Turkey. Jamie and Aaron soaked it in a salty brine overnight to make sure it turned out very juicy. I'm not normally a big fan of turkey, but I have to admit this was pretty good.
I bought new fall cloth napkins to use on Thanksgiving, which I thought added a nice little touch to the table. We also got to use our china for the 2nd time which I was very excited about because I love my china (Jamie was also happy to see it put to use...)
The goal was to eat around noon but the turkey took a little longer than usual to cook and then the casseroles had to go in the oven and they took a little longer than expected so we didn't end up eating until about 2:00. For me and my family that would have been our estimated eating time, but I guess the Murray clan likes to eat a meal closer to the noon hour. Luckily we had some delicious veggies and dip courtesy of Aunt Peg to munch on while the turkey was cooking and we watched the National Dog Show and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Jamie was the official turkey carver of Thanksgiving Day 2008 and he did a great job (we even had some antique turkey carving knives from a great grand relative of Jamie's to do the job).
5 comments:
Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle?? Ohmygoodness...please do share that recipe.
Btw, it made me chuckle to see that I am not the only one making my Thanksgiving post after Christmas. :)
Hope you're doing well and could you email me your address when you get a chance??
I had lots of thoughts as I read this post, first, good to see you again!
Second, you're NOT supposed to put beef in the trifle!! ;)
Third, if you don't like stuffing or turkey, do you like Thanksgiving at all?
Fourth, Bravo to your hubby for his mad cooking skillz.
Fifth, aren't you supposed to save the china for someone REALLY important, like the Queen of England?
(I guess I just can't have Thanksgiving without associating it with Friends.)
Looks like you had fun! We miss you! Oh and I'm with Chrissy - way behind in the blogging. I'm still considering posting about things we did this summer.
To respond to Dawn's third comment, I think that if you like ONE major T-giving food, then you can like T-giving. Perhaps Rachel doesn't like turkey or stuffing, but maybe she loves pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce. I'm personally not a fan a stuffing...I never saw what the big deal was, but I still consider myself a T-giving fan. I do like turkey, though. And pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes in some form and mashed potatoes....
I can understand that. I'm not a big fan of Easter dinners/lunches. I am not a fan of those big sliced hams. But I still like the holiday.
~ Dawn
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