Happy Thanksgiving! What's for Dinner?

Menu

Shrimp Cocktail

Assorted Cheese and Crackers

Roast Turkey with Fresh Herbs

Mashed Mixed Potatoes

Sweet & Sour Green Beans

Sausage, Apple and Cranberry Stuffing

Red Cabbage

Cranberry Apple Chutney

Assorted Breads

Pumpkin Creme Brulee

Apple Pie

I was in the kitchen this morning by 8:00 a.m. and by noon had cooked my cranberry sauce (nice and tart, just the way Steve likes it), made my world-famous "make the day before mashed potatoes", prepared the creme brulee and baked a mile-high apple pie. Tomorrow there will be even more kitchen craziness with The Bird, stuffing and green beans, and then the always challenging act of getting everything to the table, at the same time, while it's still hot.

I do not have a double oven. I would only use it one day of the year and therefore cannot justify the expense, nor could my recent mini makeover of a kitchen find room for it. For the last several years I have regrettably roasted my turkey in the Nesco to free up the oven for all of the side dishes. The resulting bird has always been moist but I miss that lovely caramel color, the crispy skin and the yummy roasted flavor you can only get from an oven. How can I make this work?

I have no idea, no real game plan, but this year I'm moving The Bird to the oven. I bought a cute little heated buffet server at Target this year, thinking my potatoes, stuffing and veggies could go in the three trays very nicely. However, according to the directions, it only heats to 185 degrees so everything must already be warm before putting it in the server. Hmmmmmm. Of course, there is the microwave, but I'm not sure how my potatoes will behave because I've always baked them in the oven - they get all puffy and fluffy in the real oven and I'm worried they won't be as delicious out of the fake oven. I guess I really don't have a choice...

We are not having a big crowd, just mother- & father-in-law, so we'll have LOTS of leftovers with a 22 lb turkey! Turkey and biscuits, Turkey cacciatore, Turkey pot pie, Turkey sandwiches, Turkey Turkey Turkey. It doesn't matter to me, I'm in it for the side dishes anyway. YUM!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Few New Things

Here are a few new bags I've recently finished.




The Daddy Diaper Bag is SO cute - every new Daddy must have one!!!






The Ballet/Soccer bag is for a little girl down the street and I searched the world over looking for the perfect fabric. I didn't want Teddy Bears in tutu's, she's too old for that. And the pink soccer fabric - PERFECT!! The flowers on the front of the ballet side were really fun to make, once I found the instructions on how to do them.





And the red and black bag is another rendition of a set of prints that continues to be my favorite. I think I've officially made every bag in my line with this fabric. I just can't get enough of it!
Enjoy!

Today is your birthday! Happy Birthday to you!

Today is my baby's birthday. I don't think it's possible for me to be the mother of a THIRTEEN year-old, but I am. Yes, thanks for noticing, I was a child bride, and even younger when I gave birth to him.

To celebrate the big event we spent our weekend in the land of fudge and waterparks, the Wisconsin Dells. For anyone not familiar with "the Dells", it's exactly like Estes Park, CO and Myrtle Beach, SC, except without the mountains and the ocean. In the summer it's beyond unbearable, with crowds of barely dressed people of every size (ok, by that I mean lots of fat cheese-eating wisconsinites) and wall-to-wall minivans in the streets, everyone clamoring for a ticket to the water ski show or the bungee plunge. However, at this time of the year the Dells magically becomes much more tolerable, one only needs the street smarts to handle the obnoxious flat-landers (people from Chicago) and their badly mannered children to survive, and so it is this time of the year we make our annual trek.

We splashed and sprayed and flew down tubes and tunnels, all in the name of good clean fun, with the exception of the dreaded swine flu virus that was threatening to latch on to us at every turn. Seriously, could there be a better place to live if you were a virus looking for a home? I guess we'll know in a few days if our incessant use of the Purel dispensers did us any good.

Now we're home, dry and darn exhausted. An afternoon spent raking more and more leaves - we'd be up to 81 bags if someone hadn't come in the cover of darkness last night to steal all of the bags in our cul-de-sac. Who does that? I'm happy to give them to you...I mean, the city would have picked them up for free tomorrow, so it's no big deal, except that you could have offered to help us rake!!

The steaks are on , the ice cream cake is chillin' and it's time for me to go sing a little Happy Birthday to my boy...