Tuesday, November 30, 2021

A charmingly late Thanksgiving

Last year, we had an "alternate" Thanksgiving dinner: sushi. That's because we were still camping in our rental house and had no means to cook a fancy dinner.

This year, because Older Daughter and I both had to work on Thanksgiving, we postponed our celebration until Sunday. At that point Older Daughter was able to take Monday off, so she came up early Sunday and spent the night.

I took the turkey out of the freezer and put it in the fridge a week ahead of time. We actually bought this turkey something like two years ago and it's been living in our freezer ever since. It's nice to have the space back.

Since Older Daughter was bringing veggies and dessert, my day was actually very easy. I started by making rolls, specifically half-time spoon rolls. First rising:

Second rising:

Done (after being brushed with melted butter):

While I worked on these, believe it or not Don was assembling the Christmas tree (!!). We didn't have one last year since we moved here to our new house just days before Christmas, so I think he just missed engaging in the festivities.

Besides, he unashamedly intended to put Older Daughter to work decorating the tree while she was here.

I made wild rice stuffing, my personal indulgence.

Also mashed potatoes.

I kept up with dishes so nothing got overwhelming.

We put the turkey in the oven about the time Older Daughter showed up.

While the turkey baked, we took Mr. Darcy for a walk, then all pitched in to decorate the Christmas tree.

Then Older Daughter put the finishing touches on her desserts: pistachio pie and French silk pie. Looks professional, no?

The French silk pie gave her no end of trouble. The day before, she'd messaged: "Yeesh, I just messed up on every single step of that French silk pie (that's what I get for not triple-checking the recipe), but I finally wrangled it into a pie shape and the filling tastes quite good. Whew!" (Both pies were delicious.)

She also brought ingredients for her specialty, green beans in oyster sauce. Out-of-this-world good.

We had just pulled the turkey out of the oven...

...when we all simultaneously happen to see one of the prettiest sunsets we'd seen since moving here. We all tumbled outside to admire it.

A distant farmhouse looked magical.

Back indoors, Don carved the turkey...

...and we all sat down to our feast.

We have so much to be grateful for this year, it's hard to know where to begin. God is good.

3 comments:

  1. The meal looks very inviting. Glad to see that older daughter made it to your home. Ours was very low key as our son could not make it up.

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  2. Oh, tell me about green beans in oyster sauce. "More, please". Julia

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  3. God is good...
    All the time!!!

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