Thanks for Franks in Blanks

This morning Jillian and I walked down Tryon, and chatted with this horse.

And looked at these barns.

Then, with some simple mental math, we decided we canceled out 1/45th of today’s energy intake, and made our way home to prep our tum tums for some fantastic noshing.

In our family, we value education.  Enter: our Thanksgiving history lesson.

     

Education shmeducation.  My aunt just covers our seats with pilgrims and turkeys.  Close enough, right?

Auntie Sharon does it up right.  Look at all that business on the chandelier.

 

Buffalo chicken dip is dope.  Dunk, dip, slather, eat with a spoon.  Nothing is better than buff chick dip.

 

Weenies, weenies, weenies.  Chocolate before dinner.

And welcome to the 7th grade dance.

oOoOo… the boy’s room…

… and the giiiiirl’s room.

Delumptuous (this is a word)…

 

Get in my belly.

 

Turkey, turkey, turkey, TURKEY, turkey, turkey, turk.  (Sorry to everyone present for singing one word jingles far too many times)

STOP IT.

 

Dad decided to cut half the bird like Bobby Flay does — big ole hunks to keep the juice in.  Bobby taught Dad this morning when he was on Rachael Ray’s show.

While Dad carved, we popped open some chocolate wine.  Grandma deduced that she’d rather enjoy the two as separate entities.

awwww yeah

       

A few Aussie throw backs:

My aunt used a koala clip to seal up the cupcakes, and I spotted the aboriginal painted coasters in the dining room.

And the main event.  Jillian made pumpkin pie (it was outrageously delicious), and Uncle Dicky Van Gogh-ed it.

 

A simple Keurig lesson and Gram’s apple crumb.  Doesn’t get better.

Why hello, cupcake tree.  How might you be on this fine November evening?

Do some giving, do some thanking.  Make your body horizontal.

Stuffed

Buttermilk Cornbread

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cups yellow cornmeal

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons sugar (or to taste)

2 cups buttermilk

2 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Heat oil in sheet pan for 5 minutes.

3. Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl, make a well in the center of the mixture.

4. Stir together buttermilk and egg, add to dry ingredients, stirring until moistened (don’t over mix! a few lumps are a-okay)

5. Pour onto hot pan.

6. Bake for…. hmm… as long as you feel like.  I don’t do bake times because the ovens I use generally don’t match up to other oven’s cooking times.  I cooked mine for probably 15 minutes.

If this was “normal” cornbread, it would be a hell of a lot sweeter (at least that’s what I like), and It would be in a deeper, smaller pan for big ole chunks.  But I want fairly dry cubes for the stuffing.

mmm it smells like cornbread.

It would make more sense to let the cornbread stale a bit overnight, but ehhhh I don’t quite plan ahead. I had the kitchen today before mom snags it tomorrow, so it made the most sense to do it all today.

Here comes the fun part.

Sausage Apple Cranberry Cornbread Stuffing

1. Toast cornbread: Toss cornbread chunks onto a baking sheet, and toast in a 250 degree oven for about 30 minutes.  I also toasted up some wheat slices we had.

2. Prepare base:

2 tablespoons butter/olive oil/ fat of choice

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 stalks celery, chopped

Combine ingredients and saute until veggies are soft.

Add chopped apple (I used a golden delish) and fresh herbs (I used rosemary, time and sage)

And as usual, these quantities can be tweaked to taste

3. Prepare Sausage:

Pop it out of its casing (I’m sorry, that sounds so gross), or don’t (I didn’t), and cook it through in a saute pan.

4. Combine Ingredients:

Dump onion mixture into a large bowl, then mix in sausage, and add a little salt and pepper and add the toasted bread chunks.

5. Add Stock: Add enough chicken stock to soak the cornbread.

6. Store and Bake: Scoop up your lovely-smelling-goodness into a pan and cover and refrigerate until Turkey day (I can do this since it’s tomorrow, but if you do it much more ahead of time I’m sure freezing is okay too)

Then bake that puppy up at 350 until hot and browned on top (very technical terms here)

7. Eat and Pray: Stuff the stuffing in your face and pray your family members don’t ostracize you.

Recipe adapted from: Sausage Cranberry Apple Cornbread Dressing

A Very Merry 422 Thanksgiving

The wine: flowing. The laughter: abundant. Blah ,blah, blah we ate a lot of deliciousness.

We, the ladies of 422 (plus our house pet, Colin) decided to host a pre-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving dinner.

I don’t know why we didn’t think of doing this sooner.

Svedka, crackers, a medley of cheese, cool whip, reddi whip and wine.  All the components of a classy meal.

Anna roasted some garlic and olive oil rubbed asparagus.  Look, we eat veggies!

I made two squash dishes.  The left one is delicata squash and carnival squash with dill, olive oil, onion and lemon (salt and pepper too).  The right one is candied walnuts, pumpkin, apple, acorn squash, brown sugar, apple cider, and freshly squeezed oj.

Priyanka whipped up a fun quinoa dish with corn, olives, tomato, cheese and black beans.  We are very traditional with our Thanksgiving dishes.  The pilgrims definitely served this.

Can’t have enough mashed potatoes.  Liz wins for pro mashing skills.

Tara cooked up the biscuits.  And Brenna made apple sauce.  And pie! Colin brought pie and both cool whip and reddi whip… just in case.  The rotisserie chicken stood in as our impromptu turkey.  Works for me.

Happiness.

We are so domestic.  Happy almost Thanksgiving!