Thanksgiving Dinner

We have issues with Thanksgiving. We don't love it. I like the idea of time off from school and work and a nice relaxing weekend. I love the idea of giving thanks and feeling gratitude. I don't love that the day is dedicated to one giant meal with turkey, that takes so much work and for which I end up doing all the cleanup. In the past we have shunned tradition at times and have had a Thanksgiving of Indian food. Get it? Indian? We figure that is where the Europeans were trying to get originally anyway.

For some reason the past few years I have been yearning for the traditional though. The whole giant spread. I don't know where the Siren song comes from. Last month I didn't want a traditional feast, but by two weeks ago I did. I asked Kenneth if we could go out for dinner? No. I asked if we could go to the church where they were having a community meal? No. I then asked if we could have a traditional meal. No. I then told him I wasn't cooking any of Thanksgiving dinner. He said he would pick the menu and do it. Great. He was still planning on Indian at that time. Fast forward to this week. He finally decided that we would do a traditional meal, but not our traditional. So we looked online at a site called ThePioneerWoman.com. She has a cooking area where she shows you how to make some yummy looking stuff. She has a whole Thanksgiving menu from which we borrowed heavily. So Kenneth and I went shopping Tuesday night after most of the kids were in bed to buy all the ingredients we needed, you know, like a turkey. We bought the free-range one which tasted so much better than a regular one. I'm kidding. A bird is a bird, but it is supposedly healthier and the bird lives a happy, yet short life before the wringing of the neck episode at the locally owned and operated free-range farm. What?! All I know is all's well that ends up in my stomach tasting so delicious. Back to the narrative.

Inspired by the Pioneer Woman I started cooking on Wednesday. I started the turkey brining, made the potatoes, the butternut squash puree, the apple, pumpkin, and pecan pies, and the cranberrie sauce. Sophia helped with the cranberries and Dylan was my big helper with the pies. By the end of the day I was exhausted. My body hurt from standing all day. I had to do two loads in the dishwasher throughout the day. I also had to make an acutal dinner in there somewhere. It was so worth it though to get all that done. It meant that Thursday was all about the turkey, the gravy, the stuffing, and the rolls. It was much more relaxed than previous years and the cleanup was a breeze. Just so you know that I am not Martha Stewart or Bree Hodge, the rolls were an unmitigated disaster. Kenneth did the turkey and the gravy. The reason I was cooking even after I said I wouldn't was because I meant I wouldn't cook an Indian meal, but I was happy to cook a traditional one.

Recipes we used from Pioneer Woman:

turkey, gravy,

potatoes,

pecan pie,

butternut squash puree,

parts of the stuffing recipe

and rolls. We didn't have rolls with our feast we had them later in the day. Here is what they looked like at the time we sat down to eat.
Here is what they looked like 4 hours later.
I cooked them anyway. What else was I to do?
Here is what they ended up looking like.
Here is what they should look like in a universe where the yeast works like it should.

Traditional recipes that we can't do without even when we do Indian:

pumpkin chiffon pie

and apple pie.

Honorable mention: cranberry sauce.

The whole spread was gorgeous and delicious.
This year it was worth it. We'll see which Siren sings loudest next year.
Happy Thanksgiving.