Thanksgiving Part 2

By jen

Ok, Target was a not quite a nightmare but by the look of the sales staff it had been so prior to my arrival.  We got home and I finished with my Christmas decorating, yay Jen!  I will post pics later when I find the right thing for over my fireplace.  You know, my 12 foot ceilings are fabulous until you realize you have something like 7×5 in the way of space on the wall above the mantle.  Oy…

Back to food…

I hate peas unless they are in a pasta salad.  That said, Hubby loves peas and I decided to be a good wife and make some.  True to most things, the simpler they are the more in love everyone is with them.  I took four pieces of thick cut bacon and rendered it down with an onion.  I drained three cans of Le Sueur Very Young Peas and saved the juice.  I drained two cans of mushrooms and tossed the juice.   After all the onions and bacon were cooked down I added the peas and mushrooms, tossed them about a bit with some creole seasoning then added the pea juice back along with some chicken stock.  Let that cook about an hour on low and ooooooh it was good.  That coming from a person who hates peas.

There was very little of the peas left over after the meal.

I also made cranberry sauce from scratch for the first time ever.  This shit was yummy as well.

Cranberry Sauce:

• Took two bags (6 cups) of fresh cranberries


• Juice and zest of six (small) oranges


• 3/4’s cup of Graham’s Six Grape Ruby Port


• 1 cup sugar


• 1 tbl cinnamon


• 3 tbl cornstarch

In a small saucepan combine cranberries, orange juice and zest, port, sugar and cinnamon. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmering and cook until cranberries are tender, stirring occasionally. In a small cup make a slurry with cornstarch and 3 tablespoon water. Whisk cornstarch mixture into cranberry sauce and cook, whisking, until sauce thickens.

I am going to get some bagels and cream cheese and eat this stuff for breakfast.  It is tart but sweet and I loved it.  I still like the jelly kind in a can, but this was really nice and smelled fantastic.

We had company for dinner and they did not come empty handed.

Rocio and Carlos came with their daughter and brought a Pernil (pork shoulder roast) and Arroz con Gondules. I didn’t get a good pic of the pork, but it literally fell off the bone and we didn’t cut it because you could just fork off what you wanted.

Lee and his wife and son came as well.  Lee brought boneless beef ribs and rice and beans as well.  Lee is a grill God and his Trinidad heritage means he can flavor some food.

Yummmm

We also had Pie!  I love Pie!

Apple crumb

Rocio’s Cheesecake which her mother said tastes like medicine… we thought it was pretty good.  heh…

I love Costco Pumpkin Pie… the best $5.99 you will every spend.

Costco Pecan Pie, which was good but had too much filling.  Notice my fabulous 4 inch thick end grain chopping block?  That is my “find of a century” last year.  It weighs a ton, is about 18×18 and cost me a big whopping 18 bucks!  Yes, 18 bucks.  It was originally $125.  Yay me!  It has a slight “defect” on the side no one can really see.

We also knocked out a bottle of Graham’s Six Grape Port and a bottle of Benjamin Australian Tawny Port which is almost as good as the Taylor Fladgate 10 tawny but not quite.  I should have bought more port.

Anyway, it was a really nice day.  I didn’t stress and the kids played without bringing down the house.  After everyone left around 730 or so I unrolled the jigsaw puzzle the girls and I have been working on for a few days and we unwound a bit.  Daughter No. 1 who had been home since Tuesdays was off to see her Granny and Granddad today for the rest of her long weekend and Hubby and the rest of us girls just enjoyed out day and ate leftovers… lots of left overs I am stuffed.  I will make a gumbo either Tomorrow or Sunday with the turkey and some Andouille sausage I picked up last week and I will freeze the left over cornbread dressing and Mac & Cheese to be enjoyed over the next few weeks!

I hope everyone had a great holiday and if it was even half as nice as mine I know you did.  Christmas season is upon us and if the insanity in the news today with the shoppers is any indication, it is going to be a doozy.