Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving 2016!

Posted in famliy, Happiness by

This cracked me up:

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How are you celebrating the holiday?

We’re heading out of town to my mom’s lake house, and our dear friends are joining us for the weekend.

Hopefully we’ll wake up to views like this:

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Except possibly with snow.

Since I can’t cook and hate all domestic chores, I’m mostly phoning it in for the meal, which I pre-ordered from a local grocery store and just need to re-heat.

I’ll contribute a few things (quinoa and squash gluten-free stuffing, pumpkin pasta), but mostly I’ll stick to my usual strategy, which is to get the adult guests intoxicated enough to forget about the quality of the food.

Kids are generally more forgiving, so it’s sugar sugar sugar for them.

For my part, I hope to be able to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and check out “Turkey Confidential” on NPR, which is always a fun listen.

For the rest of the weekend, I’ve planned a trip to see holiday lights and have hot chocolate at an old-fashioned sweet shop, a private dinner in a boutique hotel, completion of a 500 piece puzzle and a potato chip taste test, wherein we try exotic chip flavors (example: biscuits and gravy) to decide what works and what is gross.

Have a great weekend!

P.S. The crazy bummer is that my mom’s lake place is a fully furnished house, yet it’s completely off the grid, internet-wise. Given that it’s Black Friday, this is probably a fiscally favorable thing for me.

 

 

Friendsgiving ’14 Recap

Posted in Fancy Pants Ranch, Happiness, Stuff I Would Cook or Make by

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Yesterday we had an awesome Friendsgiving, and I was so grateful for it.

After 16.5 years of marriage, it was the fourth Thanksgiving meal that Ever Patient Spouse and I crafted.

Two years ago (#2), I was in charge of the turkey. Yesterday, he was on Bird Duty.

One of the best parts of yesterday was having everyone over for drinks, appetizers and conversation, then people who had obligations elsewhere could go as necessary and everyone else stayed for the Big Meal.

It was perfect.

The biggest hit of the day was an appetizer: whipped lemon feta dip.

Seriously, every morsel of this was gone by the time cocktail hour(s) was/were done.

Here’s the recipe:

Whipped Lemon Feta Dip

Ingredients:

  • 10-12 oz. crumbled fat-free feta (this is a real product and perfect for this dish)
  • 2 cloves fresh garlic
  • 3 T. olive oil
  • Juice AND zest of one lemon
  • Optional but recommended: Generous shakes of red pepper flakes

Directions:

  • Get out your food processor. This is what you need for this recipe to work.
  • Pulse the garlic cloves until they are in fine bits. Scrape down bowl.
  • Add feta, lemon zest, olive oil, (and red pepper flakes, if using) and then juice/pulp of the lemon.
  • Pulse until creamy.
  • Ok to eat immediately, but even better if you let the flavors meld for a few hours.

I paired this with crudités (endive, baby zucchini, cherry tomatoes, carrots), a cheese board (brie, manchego, peppered gouda), marcona almonds, and two flatbreads I bought from Trader Joe’s.

After a prosecco toast, one holiday drink we served was hot cider with two kinds of spicy liqueur (Fireball – a cinnamon whisky, and Goldschlager) as optional add-ins. Yum!

The Big Meal was mostly traditional, but we had carrot cake, pumpkin pie, and my unfailing flourless chocolate cake as dessert. All of the chocolate cake was gone in the end. Every last crumb. Like ALWAYS. This dessert hit another home run.

Having friends over was so awesome. This was a great holiday.

P.S. This actually happened:

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