THANKSGIVING LESSONS

Thanksgiving is TOMORROW! Sheeesh, I swear Halloween was just yesterday.  Well I have been trying to prepare better this year than in years before.  This will be our third year that we are not in Utah with our big families for Thanksgiving.  I have learned a lot when preparing most, if not all, of the meal by myself. I really am not one that likes to cook.  I like the tradition of food, and I like to eat it, but I am not one that LOVES to prepare it. In the past, I have tried to make everything the day of.  Oh, boy was that a bad idea.  I got so stressed about making everything that I did not enjoy myself at all.  I have learned from these experiences and this year have made a schedule for my meal plan so that I don't have so much to make the day of.  Yesterday, I made homemade cranberry sauce.  I found the recipe here.  It was very easy.

 In the recipe she specifically says to watch it so it doesn't boil over....and what do I do?....Watch it as it boils over.....but its okay, it turned out!

Another thing about cooking and me, I am pretty lazy about it and if I can find a short cut, I will take it. I also made two pumpkin pies yesterday.  The shortcut I took was with the crust.  Two cups of flour mixed with one cube of butter plus a little water to make it the right consistency and viola! roll it out and put it in your pie pan and there you go. I gotta tell you the infamous pumpkin pie story of 2011.  I made two full pies plus a little one the night before Thanksgiving but when I checked them after the timer went off, decided that they probably needed a few more minutes.  I put them back in with out setting the timer again, thinking I would remember them in a min.... Well, a whole movie later, we are getting ready for bed and I have a thought of my apartment burning down and go, "MY PIES!!!!!".... Uh....Ya....needless to say, they were black! Lesson learned: ALWAYS put the timer on, even if its only for an extra minute cause I WILL forget.

This years pies!! Perfect.

Today, I will be making the rolls.  The recipe I used can be found here.  I really loved this recipe, partly because she is very detailed about how to make it and the dough was pretty yummy too! I have to start these early in the day to make sure the dough has plenty of time to rise multiply times.  That is another thing I have learned about bread/rolls that need to rise, I get in a panic when I don't give them enough time to do their thang...so rolls get a day all on their own.. I might even make the pudding and whipped cream (for the banana cream pie) today and assemble it tomorrow.

The dough rising....me waiting...writing this post!

Tomorrow, the Hub is on turkey duty.  That is another thing I learned, give the husband an assignment! I don't have to do everything. Now, let me tell you what happened last year with the tuuurrkey. I put it in with plenty of time and thought I had read the directions carefully and put the plastic baggy thing over it perfectly. Timer goes off, I go to pull it out of the oven, expecting perfection but instead the plastic bag has melted to the top of the turkey and the bird itself is looking dry and crispy.  I stop and think for a second, look at what the temp of the oven is set at and find out its on BROIL!  It seemed that my 14-month-old had discovered how fun it was to turn the dial on the oven.  After that day, I had lost my appetite for turkey until now. This year, there will be constant checking of the oven temperature while the turkey is cooking!

 These are re-enactment photos

The things I will be making tomorrow are whipped sweet potatoes with brown sugar-pecan topping that I got from my friend, Bacon, Sour Cream & Chive Mashed Potatoes that I found here, and stove top stuffing (another thing I do to stay sane, NOT everything is homemade, I like the boxed stuff anyway), and last but not least, steamed asparagus drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. 

Hopefully this year we wont have any disasters. I am sad that I am the ONLY one of my sibs that will not be in Park City for Thanksgiving but I am very excited because a niece and nephew from the Hub's side are coming to visit us and we have lots of fun things planned.  I am also hoping that Lindsay's post on Friday will have lots of pictures of all the fun they are having. I hope y'all (I live in the south now, I can say that), have a very Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy the day. 

I would LOVE to know what your holiday preparation strategies are that help you enjoy your holiday and not stress during the day.  Please leave a comment!