Thanksgiving Part 1

For most of America, Thanksgiving is four days away, but for my family, Thanksgiving was last night. I'm sad it's over! Jeff and I hosted a nine-person dinner party and had a truly great time. My parents and sister Emily (a.k.a. Poof) and her husband Tyler stayed overnight and enjoyed a 24-hour nonstop food event, and Jeff's folks and Melissa came by for the big meal. My brother Ryan wanted to attend, but he was having an oven crisis at home--long story. I missed seeing him and Shanna and Ashley, but Christmas is just around the corner.

I spent yesterday in perpetual motion and was unable to take lots of photos, so I'm hoping that Dad and Poof will email me some family/food pictures within the next couple of days. In the meantime, I thought I'd share our recipes and existing photos with you in case you came here looking for some last-minute ideas. I've blogged about these recipes in the past, so what you'll get is lots of links (at the beginning of each section) along with some comments and tips.

Turkey Placecards! This year I decided to get a little crafty with the place settings for some reason. A while ago Mom gave me a stack of Martha Stewart Living magazines that were several years old, and I found a project for turkey placecards in the November 2007 issue. The part of me that could have been a grade school art teacher felt the need to make them. I didn't have the necessary brown and red card stock on hand, but I had plenty of scrap watercolor paper, so I painted my turkey pieces. To create the tail, I used some yarn we had around the house that Nicole bought years ago. (I think she planned to make a poncho with it, as I also found a "How to Make Ponchos" book while Jeff and I super-deep-cleaned the house last week. This place is SPARKLING.)

Anyway, I added my own creative touch to this: an eye. Martha didn't want me to make one, but make one I did. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel.

 

Then I made the mistake of browsing through some of Martha's online collection of other Thanksgiving crafts, and happened upon a link for these...

Twig coasters. I don't know what got into me, but you've got to admit her photo is cute, and our yard is loaded with sticks and/or twigs. I went outside during last Tuesday's strange tornado watch/warning weather (75 degrees, really unstable air mass, windy, humid, rumbly) and gathered as many sticks as I could before a heavy downpour hit and kind of had a ball in doing so.

I made ten coasters, each of which consisted of 20-22 five-inch sticks. So that's a lot of measuring and cutting to say the least. Missing art supply for this craft: waxed twine. Who houses a constant supply of waxed twine, Martha? I'm going to have to embed this again.

 

My solution: dental floss. Ha! Our dentist gives us plenty of it! While not as rustic/authentic as Martha's waxed twine, our dental floss was free and in the house. I was able to make ten coasters using one package (roll?) of it, and I didn't come close to running out. If you like repetitive, mindless knot-tying, this is the craft for you. And the knots are just those easy, first-thing-you-do-when-you-tie-your-shoes knots. Each coaster took about 25 minutes to tie together. The first two are fun. The last eight are extremely tiresome. But I made them because we really needed coasters. In an attempt to make them waterproof and a bit sturdier, I hot glued each coaster to a square of the tough black plastic you can find on the cover of Mead's Five Star spiral notebooks (I threw out some of my notebooks while I cleaned out my studio.)

Nobody used them as coasters, of course, but the turkeys looked cute on them. Poof and I decided that they were turkey life rafts floating down a sea of gravy, symbolized by our brown tablecloth.

And now, some recipes!

Since my side of the family arrived six hours before supper, I felt the need to provide lots of snacks upon which they could graze throughout the afternoon. Such as...

Peanut butter hummus. This recipe makes a LOT, and I could've halved it and still had enough. I am crazy about his hummus, and it pairs nicely with carrots, celery, crackers, etc.

Li'l smokies. These made the kitchen smell fantastic and taste equally great hot and at room temperature. We picked at these all day and ate the leftovers for breakfast the next day.

Seasonally-spiced nuts. Sweet, salty, herby, and garam masala-y!

Roasted red pepper cheesecake. Put some of this on a cracker or toasted baguette slice and you've got The Perfect Bite. I love making this, even though it requires a 4-inch springform pan. Tip: use full-fat cream cheese and ricotta. I made yesterday's cheesecake with reduced fat products, and while delicious, it wasn't as firm and lost its shape as it set out in our warm kitchen nook.

The heavyset cheeseball. No family gathering is complete without it!

Spiced pumpkin cookies. I thought my appetizer buffet needed something sweet, and these were a smash. I made and froze the cookies ahead of time, uniced. Thanks to the pumpkin, these are so moist that they can stay uncovered for hours and still be fabulous.

Mom made her famous apple and cherry pies, which I placed on my trusty pie rack. I set it inside a Thanksgiving wreath, and this made an easy centerpiece alongside bowls of lemons and clementines.

Posole. Along with the appetizers, I gave my hungry, road-weary family bowls of posole (Mexican chicken soup) for lunch. My folks enjoyed the addition of hominy--an ingredient they remembered from their childhoods but hadn't eaten in years. Chickeny goodness!

So this was our menu, and Jeff put his turkey in the oven at around noon.

Jeff's Hollywood Turkey. A little more labor-intensive than your average turkey but extra-moist and beautiful to look at, Jeff's turkey was a hit with everybody. Follow the link for his step-by-step instructions and bonus commentary about It's A Wonderful Life.

While Jeff puttered around the kitchen, Poof, Dad, and I laughed our heads off while playing Angry Birds and telling stories in the living room. Poof has a hilarious llama story that you've got to read. I haven't seen Poof since our trip to New York, and while we never feel like we can spend enough time together, we try to have as much fun as possible when we do see each other. This weekend was no exception. At one point we were in the kitchen dancing stoopidly to Girl Talk and just plain having a blast. I love her so much.

Carrot cake mini-bundts. I like to give Poof fun cooking tasks that exploit her decorative flair when she comes over. Yesterday she iced these mini bundt cakes with cream cheese icing and leftover pumpkin cookie glaze. Some of the bundts contained walnuts, so she topped those with, you guessed it, walnuts.

Malted crisp tart. Poof also decorated the top of this blockbuster dessert with malted milk balls and caramelized rice crispies. I don't have a photo of her tart decoration yet, but video is coming soon! I will say this: she made those two things resemble owl faces and it was genius. I made the tart on Friday, and it's not as time-consuming as my recipe indicates. I've made it about four other times since that blog and have since become a lot more efficient. People loved this tart, and there were lots of "oh my god"s and looks of disbelief at its greatness. They were talking about it the next day, and I'm not even exaggerating.

Stuffing. With Italian sausage, apples, onions, cranberries, celery, and really good bread, this is my favorite stuffing and is a meal in and of itself. The recipe makes a truckload. Give it a try!

I also made Parmesan smashed potatoes by Ina Garten, peas and bacon by Tyler Florence, and orange cranberry sauce by Rachael Ray (I used the juice and zest of clementines instead). Hey thanks, Food Network! Sorry there are no photos, but I think you can imagine what those three might look like. We also had some nice Italian rolls.

Above: cell phone photo from Poof. You can see Jeff and me in the kitchen cooking up a storm. While I made most of the above recipes well ahead of time, I had to save the peas and potatoes for the last minute. And then it was time to eat!

Check out Tyler as he chows down on a turkey leg, Viking style. The meal was wonderful, and everybody sat around the table and told stories for what seemed like hours afterward. My side of the family stayed overnight, and it was like a big slumber party.

Apple dumplings. The next morning, I made everybody breakfast--I say apple dumplings qualify as breakfast. These received more raves than any other Thanksgiving item. Poof in particular went crazy for them. I was able to freeze/refrigerate each component days beforehand (glaze, dough, filling), so all I had to do this morning was peel and core four apples and assemble. I served them with leftover li'l smokies.

Hand pies. Finally, I popped some pre-frozen hand pies in the oven--two per person--and after they cooled a bit, I wrapped them in parchment paper. I put the cute little pies in paper bags and gave them to everybody as take-home treats to enjoy during the ride home. (Text from Poof later: Hand pies are awesome!!!!)

And then Jeff and I collapsed for several hours. We're making gentle dents in the leftovers. And this Thursday we're probably going to get some Chinese takeout.

Comments

[Hil]

That looks lovely. Thanksgiving is my favorite gathering day. I have mentally bookmarked that twig idea for when I get my domestic on some day. I think I was meant for decorating for parties but I have absolutely no reason/space for said parties yet. One of these days I'm going to just go crazy with it though.

This year Mom is being challenged with a gluten free Thanksgiving so we are having a lot of different things. Most sound dreadful to me, but since Mom has run with it I am pretending I am excited about these "substitutes". My preferences is that instead of trying to find a substitute we just do something entirely different. That's not happening. We shall see. This might be my best acting job to date.

[Mel]

WOW! What work! I always have the fam at my house- I am already exhausted from day to day cooking for the brood- but this has inspired me to "put on my big girl pants" and rally! xo - lov ya- Am so happy you all had a joyous time together. Laughing with family is the funniest.

MEL

[Kelly]

Mel, I truly do not know how you feed your big family on a day-to-day basis. Amazing! Love you and miss you and your little brothers too. We need to do an extended family get-together one of these days!

Hil, I spent my twenties and most of my thirties being non-domestic and living alone in awful transient apartments, so now it seems like those stifled tendencies are exploding to the surface. As long as I don't have to try too much. I think I will always dread and hate cleaning, for example. Good luck with your acting job! <3

[Kevin Hunsperger]

Looks great. Love the place cards. Happy Thanksgiving

[mark d]

I'm coming over for apple dumplings and li'l smokies! Thanks for the report. Now to watch the video.

[Andrea]

Hi Kelly! I can't even put into words how much I enjoyed this post..I'm fairly new to your blog, but I feel like I know both you and your sister thanks to her videos/blogs..you're both so sweet! I'm truly in awe after reading this, between your artwork, decorating, and nonstop cooking..it all kinda blows my mind lol!

Your house looks beautiful (I love those turkey placecards and coasters, but I totally wouldn't have the patience to make those myself!) and all the food looks delicious (I'm drooling over those dumplings). I admire all the love you put into all of this, it really shows. I'm glad you and your family had a great early Thanksgiving, and I look forward to checking out more of your posts.

:)

[seasonal recipes]

Looks great. Love the place credit charge cards. Pleased Christmas