Day-After Thanksgiving Coma

The boys set our Thanksgiving table.

'Twas the day after Thanksgiving and no one was hungry for breakfast, so I got to sit down and blog instead of making eggs and bacon.

We hope you enjoyed your day with friends and family. Here's a look at how our day went:

Chance checked out the turkey while it thawed.

Homemade onion dip made an appearance on our appetizer spread.

The husband got his cranberry butter.

Ant took care of the turkey.

The cider-glaze turkey was dee-lish.

Our Thanksgiving buffet table - minus the turkey

The pumpkin pie didn't look the best, but it tasted pretty good.

I could eat my weight in apple pie.

The husband loves the crumb topping.

Did you save room for dessert?

*Freestyle Friday: Pumpkin Votives Holders

*Sometimes there's a little more to my life than food. Friday's the day I'll share, I mean, most Fridays I hope to share those bits with you. We'll cover crafts, music, travel, who knows.


If you ask the husband, he'll tell you I'm full of ideas. I rip pictures out of magazines, show the husband and tell him how great it'd be if we built that walkway, painted the living room that color, put up crown molding in the bedroom or made those pumpkin votive holders for Thanksgiving.

Yes, my great ideas almost always require his assistance. Luckily, I've yet to come up with anything crazy enough for him to reject. (Although he's really fighting me on putting in one of those wall-length sliding glass doors in our next house.) 

Sometimes, though, I do come up with ideas that I'm not too sure the husband is going to be excited about helping me with. For example: pumpkin votive holders for Thanksgiving. Table settings aren't really his thing, but tools are. Perhaps that's why he helped me make these for our celebration. Actually, he even helped me pick out the pumpkins at the store. Good man.

What you'll need:
foam pumpkins
a knife or a drill with a small drill bit
votives 

What you'll do:
Outline where you'll cut your circle on the top of the pumpkin. (You may want to do this with a light pencil.) Make sure the hole you're going to cut will fit your candle snugly. 

Cut into the pumpkin - but not too deep! You don't want the candle to fall into the pumpkin and, quite possibly, catch everything on fire at the dinner table.

Insert your candle and enjoy!

Thanksgiving Trial Run: No-Knead Rolls

Last weekend I did something I never thought I'd do: I bought skinny jeans. I've been hating them from afar for months now, secretly wanting to kick the person who thought it'd be cool to bring tapered-leg jeans back in style. When none of your pants fit, though, you can be swayed to make very impulsive purchases.

I had store credit. The jeans fit. I bought them. I wore them to work. And then I debated all day whether I felt hip in my skinny jeans or like it was 1992 all over again.

Although I was willing to wear snug-fitting jeans in public, I wasn't quite ready to do so in ballet flats and my tapered ankles for all the world to see. The wedding boots had to do. The truth is, there's a chance I subconsciously wanted skinny jeans because I found a new pair of boots I'd really like Santa to leave under my tree. In fact, I think these jeans would look perfect with those boots.

Yes, sometimes I like to torture myself. And that's exactly why I made these rolls. They're going to be perfect on our Thanksgiving buffet - perfectly torturous for those who shouldn't be consuming carbohydrates.

Thanksgiving Trial Run: Buttermilk Cornbread Dressing

Buttermilk Cornbread Dressing
Slightly Adapted From the Recipe Featured in Country Living, November 2011

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 batch moist cornbread, allowed to dry at room temp for two days and cut into 1-inch pieces
a dash of lemon juice
1 1/2 cups fat-free low-sodium chicken broth
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender, about seven minutes, stirring frequently.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Put the onion mixture into a large bowl. Add in the cornbread. Coat with lemon juice, broth, butter, salt and pepper. Toss until moistened.

Spread in a 13-x-9-inch baking dish and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 20 minutes or until crusty on top and hot all the way through.

Enjoy!

The original recipe called for sausage, pecans and parsley, but I hate sausage, Little Big Brother is allergic to nuts and I didn't have any parsley in the house. For Thanksgiving, though, I think it'll be worth it to invest in some parsley. It'll brighten things up a bit and add a little more flavor, I think.

This dressing was good - the husband liked it and the tiny piece I allowed myself was awfully tasty. We both agreed, though, that it was quite buttery and next time I should cut the bread into smaller pieces. One-inch pieces were a bit large. The husband even suggested I cook a little onion in the cornbread next time so all of the onion pieces don't sink to the bottom of the baking dish. I suggested I throw some celery in when the big day comes around, but the husband is pushing back on that idea. Apparently he didn't miss the traditional celery, but I think others might.

Overall, this was a winner and will definitely be on our Thanksgiving table. It may need a few tweaks before it hits our family members' plates, but it's a keeper for sure.

Thanksgiving Trial Run: Moist Cornbread

Moist Cornbread

I'm addicted to recipes. Was it not obvious? Well, now I've admitted it. And with this addiction comes magazine reading, cookbook collecting, Google searching, Foodbuzz gazing. I can't stop. I collect recipes, and I look forward to making new dishes for the husband. And when I know I have family and/or friends coming to our house, I get super excited about what I can cook them. Super. Excited.

But my excitement goes right out the window when I try out a recipe that fails and leaves me angry and embarrassed. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," the husband will tell me. Well, what do you do when you don't necessarily have a tried-and-true recipe under your belt for said dish, but you really want to serve it to company. Do a trial run. Duh.

I act like I've done this forever. Really, though, I'm more likely to make a new recipe when our parents come to visit, have it fail, get all bent out of shape when it doesn't look like the picture and ask myself why I didn't make it before our company arrived. So I'm going to - finally - follow my own advice.