Thanksgiving - 2023

  For Thanksgiving Tom and I stayed home (what else is new?) and we chose a few favorite foods to make our day special. I started with cranberry sauce on Monday which I knew I could make early. It needs some time in the refrigerator anyway.

 I just use the recipe on the Ocean Spray bag. I suppose it'd be easier to buy a can of either the sauce or the jellied form but this makes me feel like it's somehow fresher. I always pop a few cranberries in my mouth when I start  the recipe but they are bitter and almost unpalatable. With a cup of sugar that problem is quickly solved.

 Tom bought a vegetarian turkey roll which turned out to be quite good. It came with its own veggie gravy sealed in two plastic pouches. That was also entirely acceptable. Tom's not a vegetarian but he goes along with my wishes and we don't serve any meat at meals.

 Here's what  the turkey roll was:

 We buy Marie Callender's vegetarian pot pies regularly and they contain  Gardein "chicken" or "beef". It all tastes  about the same. This turkey roll was stuffed with brown  and white rice, cranberries  and kale. It also cost over $16 at Kroger but we have leftovers and it'll make another meal.

 

 Also Tom bought a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. 

 I made a cornbread stuffing  from an Aldi boxed mix but I always sauté celery to make it closer to homemade. I added leftover farro. It's quite good and I figure I can't do better so why bother?

 Green bean casserole is a requirement for Thanksgiving and Tom  found a bag of fresh green beans at Aldi. This didn't make the usual-sized dish but it was more than we needed and we have  leftovers.

 When we were in Wyoming this past summer, Elise Buhler gave us potato starts (both white and sweet) and we planted them  when we got home in July. That's  too late but we still managed a small crop and the yams turned out to have an excellent taste. I candied them.

 Later in the day Tom completed Mom's cheeseball and we had that for a  snack last evening.

 Needless to say, we had too much  food. Our quiet Thanksgiving was soon over.