Thanksgiving 2008

This Thanksgiving was the first we stayed home and cooked for the three of us. The only other Thanksgiving we have been home included about 25 people eating with us (which was very fun, by the way). Drew and I were still sick, and we didn't think it would be wise to be mixing with family who was getting together, and other family members were out of town. While we always love spending time with both families, it was nice this year to stay put and relax a little.

Here are some photos, and if you Facebook, sorry, some of these might be duplicates.

Tired after cooking a lot the night before Thanksgiving.

Dave and Drew making a hand turkey for the placemats.

Close-up of Drew's turkey placemat.

The first turkey I ever made. I followed an Emeril recipe, and WOW, was it good. Very moist and flavorful, and I'm assuming that is from the brine we had it soaking in for 30 hours before cooking it.

FOODIES Section:

I put this at the end so I don't bore those of you who don't care about the food details.

As I mentioned, the turkey was soaked in a brine ebfore we cooked it, and I stuffed it with a stuffing made out of the fresh Italian bread I made two nights before. In the stuffing was Italian turkey sausage, dried cranberries, celery and diced apples.

I made sweet potato casserole from a Paula Deen recipe that I adapted to our needs (I used applesauce in place of eggs and rice milk in place of heavy cream). Then I made the sugar topping but used baby marshmallows instead of roasted walnuts or pecans.

There was also corn casserole, which is 2 cans corn, 1 can creamed corn, butter, and Jiffy cornmuffin mix.

Veggies = Sauteed spinach with green beans and caramelized onions.

Then I made dairy and egg free pumpkin muffins for dessert.

We ate very well, and I didn't break the bank this year on my ingredients. AND, our favorite part, we had (have) tons of leftovers.