Thanksgiving flew by! Deep fried turkey was awesome and I also tried some new sides. Sadly, got so caught up with visiting with my parentals, forgot to take pics of our feast! J and J brought mister O over in the am and we had cheesy egg scramble breakfast and visited with them for awhile. Then my mom and I spent a few hours putting together our dinner. Did most of my prep work on Wednesday while they were driving. Made life much easier! Tried a new recipe for sweet potatoes that involved orange juice, maple syrup and bacon. Also, took the family traditional sausage dressing and added apples and craisins! My other new dish was roasted cauliflower with a ricotta and parm sauce, needs some tweaking but a definite keeper. Getting hungry just thinking about how yummy everything was. Totally forgot to do green beans and the cranberry relish never even made it out of the fridge...
O definitely cleared his plate!
After we finished up dinner, H and M brought B over for an evening snack. Horrible grandma that I am, never made a pie and they were stuck with danish, cookies and ice cream. B loves ice cream thanks to Grandpa Joe! Only one that seemed to mind the missing pie was my daughter. She did let me off the hook though after finding an after the holiday pumpkin pie on sale at the bakery! I have a giant can of whip cream to use up by next Friday so there will be some type of pie in the next few days. I'm thinking apple blueberry!
Meanwhile, the folks and Joe and I had an awesome time. My handsome O came back to see us Friday for a quick lunch. Tried out quesadillas with turkey, dressing and cheese on the inside, cranberry and hot sauce on the outside. A definite hit! The kids headed for home after lunch and we took my parents over to see H and M's house and then all of us along with M's sister and very adorable nieces had dinner at a new (to us) restaurant, Japan Inn. Quite tasty and all of the kids behaved so everyone had an enjoyable time!
Got home and spent an hour looking at tv and my folks got a taste of the cabinet spirit, check the page for the story!
Saturday was long lost cousin reunion with the added bonus of two more cousins! My aunt and uncle had all of their kids along with their three grand kids, my local crowd along with us and the folks. Total ended up at 20 of us. Must say, had the best time ever! We caught up on all the good things going on in each others lives, shared a fantastic brunch, a group of the guys managed to get some football in and the little guys made it to the park! Kudos and thanks to our host cousins. Hoping this is the first of many family get togethers in the future!
Headed out around 4:30 to show off J and J's house before driving back! My son made an awesome goat cheese dip which along with a glass of wine was our hold over until we made it back to town. Believe it or not we ended up at Denny's! Made me realize how much I miss having my folks to hang out with.
Sunday morning the parentals took off and I spent the day recuperating, cleaning, doing some laundry and making plans for the future of a refrigerator full of leftovers! Started off with a pot of turkey bones and veggies, with that stock I think we'll start off with soup at the beginning of the week. Have some leftover sausage scrambled and some onions ready to go! The obligatory turkey salad for lunch was made and I foresee several bags of diced turkey in the freezer for future use! Loving these pint size Ziploc freezer bags!
Hope everyone had as wonderful a holiday as we did!
Got home and spent an hour looking at tv and my folks got a taste of the cabinet spirit, check the page for the story!
Saturday was long lost cousin reunion with the added bonus of two more cousins! My aunt and uncle had all of their kids along with their three grand kids, my local crowd along with us and the folks. Total ended up at 20 of us. Must say, had the best time ever! We caught up on all the good things going on in each others lives, shared a fantastic brunch, a group of the guys managed to get some football in and the little guys made it to the park! Kudos and thanks to our host cousins. Hoping this is the first of many family get togethers in the future!
Headed out around 4:30 to show off J and J's house before driving back! My son made an awesome goat cheese dip which along with a glass of wine was our hold over until we made it back to town. Believe it or not we ended up at Denny's! Made me realize how much I miss having my folks to hang out with.
Sunday morning the parentals took off and I spent the day recuperating, cleaning, doing some laundry and making plans for the future of a refrigerator full of leftovers! Started off with a pot of turkey bones and veggies, with that stock I think we'll start off with soup at the beginning of the week. Have some leftover sausage scrambled and some onions ready to go! The obligatory turkey salad for lunch was made and I foresee several bags of diced turkey in the freezer for future use! Loving these pint size Ziploc freezer bags!
Hope everyone had as wonderful a holiday as we did!
