The last few years, we have had Frozen Turkey meals along with instant mash potatoes, yams, cranberries, veggies, salad, celery stalks with cream cheese filling, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. A low profile celebration, but one we enjoy together at home. What are you having?
Yes. I am cooking a turkey and having all the trimmings that go with it, and then some. I'm tired already.
We will be having one of the turkeys we recently butchered. One family with a type 1 diabetic child won't eat anything with the least amount of added sugar, and most of the store-bought ones have sugar somewhere. Salads, Turkey, deviled eggs (probably), home-canned pickles and relishes, toasted pumpkin seeds, sugar-free pumpkin custard of some kind from pumpkins we grew. The custard will be served inside a Blue Prince Pumpkin as a serving dish. Probably some other stuff as well. We will have 13 people here for dinner.
I just realized that the Thanksgivings that my Wife and I enjoy today, are "fossils" or remnants of the "real" ones we experienced in years past. That is a good thing! I hope we never give up trying. God's blessings are always the whole "Menu", and are never scaled back! On Thanksgiving, our food always has come in second.
Six years ago, we made a full-size turkey, with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and the rest at home. It was just her and I and we had way too much turkey left over. After that, for a couple of years, we bought a turkey roll for my wife and a couple of turkey legs for me at local grocery store. Since then, we've gone out for Thanksgiving Dinner. This year, we are heading to a very nice Thanksgiving Buffet at a nice hotel/casino here. Since leaving So. California, and my wife's immediate family there in 2002, there has only been twice that part of her family has visited us on Thanksgiving. Once in 2002 (her old sister) flew to Colorado and in 2008, her older sister, mom and brother flew to North Carolina to have Thanksgiving with us. So, we celebrate Thanksgiving with just the two of us and we are fine with that.
We are staying home for Thanksgiving this year. We could have gone over to my son and DIL’s house and had Thanksgiving with them, but neither of us wanted to be out in bad weather, and we have rain and cold forecast for the rest of the week here. They are coming over later in the day and will visit and have pie together. I am going to roast the turkey, and we will enjoy the leftovers until they are gone, and I will probably make turkey broth from the bones and small leftover pieces. I am trying to add more collagen into my food , and broth seems to be the best way that I have read to do that. I was going to try making oxtail, but it is like $9 lb, which is a crazy price for a cow’s tail (in my opinion), so I am going to do it with cheaper meats. Walmart will be bringing the turkey and extras this afternoon, and whenever it gets thawed out, we will cook it in the turkey roaster. My mother had a Turkey roaster way back in the early 1950’s, and that is how she always cooker our turkeys, and so that is how I have always cooked them, too. They do not get the brown crispy skin that you get from an over roasted turkey, but they are falling-apart tender. And I remembered to order a quart of eggnog, @Beth Gallagher ! Thank you for reminding me…….. I almost forgot that I have not had any this year. I love eggnog in my coffee !