Happy Thanksgiving 2012

Tina and Aaron brought beautiful flowers and lots of tasty wines.

As the head of household, Mike was responsible for carving the turkey.

Let's dig in!

My plate and looking back, that is a lot of food!

Noah had fun playing with Tina.

The dessert section.  I made the pumpkin pie and the apple pie in the middle.

We had grandpa Bob, Shasha, Nana, uncle Aaron and Tina over for Thanksgiving this year.  To reduce the workload of the Turkey Day, I started to prep for the feast 3 days in advance by baking apple pie, chopping veggies and pre-cooking the beans etc..  It was a good decision because Thanksgiving morning was hectic as I imagined.  I had to "borrow" Jen's oven to bake the stuffing and I was running around in the neighborhood with casserole dish in my hands. 

Menu:

Appetizer

Grandpa's famous hors d'oeuvres platter with oysters, olives, cheese, radishes and creamed herrings
Guacamole with tortilla chips

Main

Herbs, garlic, lemon and butter infused slow roasted turkey
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce


Sides

Sausage and Herb Stuffing
Green Bean Casserole with Homemade Mushroom Gravy
Sweet Potato Casserole
Butter Loaf

Dessert

Crunchy Crumb Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Apple Pie Tina brought
Vanilla Ice Cream
Canned Whipped Cream

The dinner turned out great.  Everything was made fresh except for canned pumpkin for the pie and the crusts.  The turkey was moist and the side dish had good flavors.  I will keep the recipes for next year.  One thing that I regret is not getting the measurements right on the crunchy apple pie.  I was supposed to add 1/2 cup plus 2 TBSP of flour to make the crumbs but only put 2TBSP hence not so crunchy topping.  I will be careful next time.  Good company and good food made the Turkey Day very special.  Thanks for coming family! 

You would think the night ended when the guest retreated and dressed in PJ, but I got a text from Jen at 10:45 pm asking if I want to head out to an adventure.  After all those talks about how crazy it is to shop on Thanksgiving day after dinner, my first words to her was "you are crazy!"  Ten minutes later, I was in her car heading out to Target.  The line at Target was winding between aisles towards the cleaning supply section, which took us about 25 minutes to get served.  I only bought a bag of coffee, but Jen saved $140 with her purchase.  It was a trip worthwhile for her and a fun one for me.  I secretly wanted to know what it's like to shop late at night in madness. 

It was a fun day all in all.  I am very thankful for my great family here in America.  They've always been good to me since the day we met in 1996.  Thanks for coming, Bob, Marsha, Jan, Aaron and Tina.  You were a great company and made the day perfect!