Thanksgiving Preparations

Like most of you, I've been prepping my contributions to our family's Thanksgiving feast and I thought I'd share a few of my specialties (mind you these are in the prep stage and won't make for nice presentation...nothing gets completed until Thanksgiving day)...

I'll start with this surprisingly beautiful sunrise this morning... I say surprising because it was drizzling and I thought the sun would never make it through the bank of clouds...it was quite lovely...

Every year, my immediate family gathers to celebrate Thanksgiving together.  We often have distant relatives who join us, and friends as well...there are times my dad's house is overflowing with all of us.  This is one of those years, with several out-of-state-ers joining us.  Everyone brings their own specialties, and these are mine...

...my mom's cranberry relish, made with fresh finely chopped cranberries, a can of drained mandarin oranges, orange zest, juice from one orange and sugar to taste.  Let everything marinade together for at least two days...zingy cranberryness!

This year I will also be making the dressing, which is a basic recipe including sauteed onions, celery and fresh mushrooms, bread cubes (yes I cheat and buy them),  vegetable stock, sage, parsley, salt and pepper.  I put it in a baking disk and it will be baked at 350F for about 30 minutes until the top is a little browned and crusty...so good. 

This is my specialty (doesn't look like much right now, but oh so good)...this is a meat stuffing made of ground chuck, pork and turkey, sauteed onion and celery, ground cinnamon, clove and nutmeg, salt and pepper, bread crumbs and vegetable stock.  After everything is cooked together, some of it gets stuffed into a cleaned out pumpkin and some makes a tourtière (French meat pie)...my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving feast!  I will stuff the pumpkin and the pie crust once I arrive at my dad's, I hope I remember to take pictures for you!

Do you have a family specialty you make?  What is your favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal?

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,

Lise