Thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving was perfect this year!

I've never completely hosted Thanksgiving before. I've always had it at someone else's house. Even if I helped to make most of the dishes, it's never been me as hostess. Some years I've gotten away with doing less than others. Some years one dish, or bring a pie, or even bring a drink. Some years, I've made half the dishes myself. This year, it was all me at my house, with my family. And it was great.

We did Thanksgiving dinner on Friday this year. Jon spent Thanksgiving day with his girlfriend at her brother's house, so we moved it back a day so he could come to our dinner also. The night before, I made the pumpkin pie and the dough for the rolls, and Ben prepped the turkey for frying.

On Thanksgiving morning, I got myself and the girls ready for the day and got in the kitchen to get started. I made a game plan the night before and wrote down what order I was going to cook everything, what time things had to get in the oven, what time they had to come out, and it made the day go very smoothly. Just as I was starting the rolls around 11, Ema called from Sequim and said she wanted to drive down and asked if that would be ok. I was so excited! One more for dinner, and it's one of my favorite people in the whole world. She hadn't driven down here by herself before (it takes about 2 hours, 3 highways, 2 bridges and a freeway) and was finally feeling brave enough to head down.

On my menu this year was: the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, cranberries, green beans, rolls, pumpkin pie and apple pie. I did the pie crusts from scratch, the rolls from scratch, the mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes from scratch, and the apple pie filling from scratch, the cranberries from scratch. I did stuffing from a box since we fried the turkey, and used canned pumpkin for the pie filling. The green beans were just the steam in a bag kind, but they were good anyway. All of it was good, actually. Really really good. I wish I had had an extra stomach for that dinner.

Ema arrived as I was cooking, and kept me company in the kitchen. She helped a lot by holding Natalie. Lauren wanted to help cook, so she went and got all of her cooking stuff - the apron, chef's hat and pot holder - from the playroom.

She also made the fantastic centerpiece for our table:

She ended up sitting in the high chair since we needed all four chairs for adults, and there wasn't much room on the table. Small, but adequate. So we did the food buffet style in the kitchen:

(from left to right:) Mashed potatoes, cranberries, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, gravy, rolls... all in my very best, fanciest, matching serving ware. Ha ha ha.

This was the sweet potato casserole, which we almost didn't have. Ben suggested I not make it when we were shopping for stuff last weekend, but at the last minute, I had him stop by the store to get some sweet potatoes. I decided that even if I was the only one who ate it, I wanted it. And I'm glad. I found a recipe online and tweaked it a little by adjusting the amount of sugar, adding pecans to the mixture before it went in the dish, and adding marshmallows on top. Very yummy, and Ema said sweet potatoes were always one of her favorite holiday dishes.

And here's the turkey that Ben fried. Wow. Delicious. If you have never had a deep fried turkey before, you're missing out. We haven't baked a turkey again since the first time we fried one. So so so so so good, you guys!

It was a very successful Thanksgiving!

Ema and Jon both spent the night and I went out shopping with Ema on Friday. Ben and Jon have been working on Jon's car this weekend, as usual when Jon comes to visit. Jon actually ended up staying another night because they didn't get a part Jon needed until late last night. They had to drive out to Sumner to pick it up, which was I was happy about because they stopped at the Sonic in Puyallup to get dinner on the way home.

It feels like it's a short week this week, too, because Natalie's birthday is Thursday and Lissa will be getting here, and I am taking Natalie to her pre-op appointment with ophthalmology and pre-anesthesia on Thursday morning, and her well-baby visit Friday morning. Then we'll have her birthday party on Saturday with Jon and Maya coming down, too.