Thanksgiving wrapup

Annnnnd we’re back.  You may have thought that we dropped off the face of the earth for about a week and that we haven’t been cooking.  Au contraire, my friends!  I did plenty of cooking for Thanksgiving to last me for about week! We had friends and family in town for the holiday.  We are so happy they all came for the weekend and we had such a great time with everyone!  Now we’re back in bloggin’ mode and we want to tell you about our fabulous Thanksgiving meal! We had a very full house last Thursday (19 people!).  All of our guests were so incredibly generous and everyone contributed make and do everything ourselves. It was great to have helping hands and and everything was delicious!

The guests included:
Me and my roommate
His parents
His three cousins, three cousins-in-law, and their kids
His engaged friends
His cousin’s coworker
My sis
(not that I’m counting, but that’s me, my sis and 17 weirdos)

Because the day was so action packed, we barely had time to taste all of the food that we shoved down our gullets, and we definitely didn’t have a chance to snap photos of all of it.  Here’s what was on the menu. Click the links to view the recipes of some of the menu items.

Appetizers
One of my roommate’s cousins was in charge of the appetizers. We had a huge selection of delicious cheeses, fruits, veggies, and dips. We also had a beautiful mich bread. This is what it looked like after it was half mowed it down:

Almonds – Mom’s famous buttery salty almonds. These were a last minute addition by my sister and everyone loved them.

Turkey (duh) – We had a gigundo turkey AND a turkey breast (or as my sister likes to call it, a turkey tit). We wanted extra meat for leftover sandwiches of course. We brined the gigundo bird and used a salt and herb rub on the boob. Both were delicious.

Gravy - Click here to see how I made the gravy ahead of time.

Mashed Potatoes – Cousin P’s famous whipped taters. They were goooood.

Brussel Sprouts – don’t freak out. These aren’t your average mini cabbages – butter makes them better!  Ok, you can freak out.  They still smelled like farts.

Green beans – No fuss green beans – a great addition to all of those carbs!

Stuffing – Shhh, don’t tell.  The stuffing was delicious, and it was from a bag! We added a little bit of onion and celery to Pepperidge Farm’s herb stuffing and it didn’t smell like farts.  It smelled like a side of Awesome.

Cranberry Sauce – We had both the whole and the jelly varieties.  We had a near-tragedy this year – the bottom of the cranberry sauce can couldn’t be opened with a can opener!  Never fear – we still got it out of the can in one big lump for perfect round jelly slices.

On to the desserts:
Two pumpkin pies – I was in charge of both pumpkin pies this year and they came out great!

Three apple pies – Cousin P. brought two different apple pies, both of which were unique and tasty.  I only had to make one.  Click here for the recipe.  I made and froze my pie crusts ahead of time.

Pumpkin trifle – My sister wanted to make this trifle from her Bon Appetit magazine.  It was really yummy and nice to have something other than just pie for dessert.

Ginger Snaps
Muffins
Various cookies
Pumpkin banana bread

Phew!  It was a lot of food but it was worth the work.  The company was wonderful and I think everyone had a fabulous time!