Calling all fellow bloggers/readers of my blog:
How do you like to prepare your Thanksgiving turkey? Or what was the favorite turkey recipe you had?
Any suggestions (overall) for Thanksgiving meal preparation?
How do you serve other (more needful) people on Thanksgiving? Any traditions?
And lastly, any suggestions to really emphasize the gratitude-focus of the day?
This is our first Thanksgiving at home, our first actually preparing the meal ourselves--actually we're having some of our dearest friends over, and they'll be bringing several dishes, too--but technically, it's our first. (We're not counting the early Thanksgiving we had when Phill was home on leave in October of '05.)
I know there are several questions here. If you want to email me your answers, if you feel like it and have time, have at it! And if you only feel like answering one (or none), that's okay, too! I'm just putting this out there, seeing what I'll get out of it.
So far, we're doing: the turkey, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin & apple pie, gravy, and our friends are doing green bean casserole and stuffing, and mashed potatoes. I have good recipes for the pies and rolls. But any other recipes (for the turkey, sauce, or gravy) are welcome.
4 comments:
How do you like to prepare your Thanksgiving turkey? Or what was the favorite turkey recipe you had? - Alton Brown's version, the brined turkey. SO GOOD, Kit does it and has tips if you want to try it.
Any suggestions (overall) for Thanksgiving meal preparation? - I do as much as I can before hand so we can focus on getting the turkey and gravy done last minute. Pies can be made ahead, cranberry sauce chilled, etc. And since we let the turkey rest 20 minutes or so it's long enough to cook the rolls while we make gravy. I should write up my timeline for myself one of these days...
How do you serve other (more needful) people on Thanksgiving? Any traditions? - Growing up we often ate at the mess hall Thursday and Sunday always had the single soldiers over for another big turkey dinner. I've not reached that level of being a good hostess since I've become a mom, though we did have some single adults over the year I was on bedrest but Jenny & Kit did the cooking. :) Someday, when my children are less likely to fling food at the guests, we'll have to start inviting people that need a place to go...
And lastly, any suggestions to really emphasize the gratitude-focus of the day? - We like to look at family movies and albums and write to the kids in their journals and focus on the blessings we've received over the previous year... sometimes we make a "Thanksgiving Tree" which is just paper and the kids write on leaves what they're grateful full and we fill the tree in fall colors. Nice visual for them to see our blessings.
Someday as the kids get older we hope to be able to reach out more, with all these little ones it's a challenge to find suitable service opportunities so if you have some ideas we would love to hear them! I keep telling myself time and season - for now we're limited a bit by logistics with four monkeys but the time will come that we can serve more as a family.
I second all that Heidi said. Prep before-hand and know what "season" you're in as far as serving others! I have more I could add but I'll only say a few things for now.
You can "talk turkey" with Eric anytime - he does our turkey you know and it's always AWESOME. AND...so funny...this year he's doing Alton Brown's brined turkey. :)
We'll also be doing Paula Deen's gravy. Are you doing Dad's rolls? We're doing Grandma Hanson rolls this year if you want to try something new.
One fun service idea for any holiday that works even with kids is to prepare a couple of plates and deliver them to people that have to work on those days (gas stations, hospitals, places like that).
http://kellymccaleb.typepad.com/my_happy_little_life/
http://thepioneerwomancooks.com/
Those links will take you to some recipes that look good to me! (I've never actually made them though :)
I think it would be fun to get a big poster board and have everyone in the family write what they're thankful for on it. It could be a sit down thing or you could just leave it out with some markers & pens and work on it thru out the day. Once the board is full, you can have a visual of the countless blessings we have.
PS This might have some good ideas too: http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/package/0,21861,1119186,00.html
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