Well, once again I cooked, which I prefer to do.
My aunt Virginia and my cousin Melissa came, as did
our friends Mary Lou and her daughter Leah, who was
in town from Boston. And a surprise visit from my
daughter Kyla who came in from Cleveland.

I had my T-day dinner on Friday for 2 reasons - to
give me time to clean house and get some of the cooking
done ahead and so that Mary Lou and Leah could come.
They were going to Mary Lou's son's house on *the* day.
Since I have such a small family left in Pittsburgh -
just my aunt and cousin, I like to augment my holiday
dinners with friends who often already have other family
commitments on the actual day.

So here's the meal:

Appetizers -
Spinach Balls (Mary Lou)
Cheese (something from Boston with cumin seeds in it -
don't recall the name) and Crackers (Leah)
Red Pepper Jam Spread and Crackers (Aunt)

First Course -
Orange Pomegranate Compote

Main Course -
Turkey
Corn Sausage Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Peas
Corn Pudding (Aunt)
Curried Sweet Potato Salad
Cranberry Mousse (Aunt)
Gram's Crescent Rolls

Wine -
Oregon Hill (PA) Blueberry Wine

Dessert -
Pumpkin Pie
Pecan Pie (Aunt)
Pecanless Pie (Aunt)

Everything turned out great. However I wasn't too
thrilled with the wine. I had tasted it at the winery
and I liked it but I didn't like the bottle I bought
as much as I remembered liking the tasting. Anyway,
it was okay with the food (fairly sweet, so not spoiled
by the taste of the food) but too sweet to drink on
it's own. Ended up finishing it off over the next
few days by making "wine coolers" by mixing it with
ginger ale.

This year the turkey was over 21 lbs.! Biggest I've
ever roasted. (I usually get one around 19-20 lbs.)
I had a new Wearever roasting pan that I got free with
a food processor purchase on Amazon.com. It's really
nice with non-stick coating and a v-rack also non-stick
coating. It's lovely heavy metal with nice heavy fold-
down handles. It's rectangular - not one of those old-
fashioned oval roasters with the lid. Anyway it was
great and I was able to just make the gravy in the pan
on top of the stove. In the past I have always used
disposable aluminum roasting pans and they don't work
that well for doing the gravy on the stove so I would
pour all the juices into my large skillet and scrape
out as much of the brown bits as possible, but I could
never get it all. This is so much better. The gravy
was the best I've ever made.

The sweet potato salad was a new recipe. It was okay
but I didn't like it enough to want to make it again.
Oh, well. It's fun to experiment.

And this year I didn't burn the rolls! Last year, due
to oven temp problems, the rolls were way overdone
at only half the normal baking time! Boy was I bummed
out last year, because one of my favorite leftover
treats is turkey sandwiches made with good homemade
turkey (not the watery crap they sell in the deli in
slices) on my good homemade crescent rolls with a
generous slathering of Miracle Whip and heated just a
tad in the microwave to soften the roll and warm up
the turkey - I *hate* cold sandwiches.

And this year I made a double recipe of the orange
pomegranate compote since there is never enough
left over to satisfy me. I only make it once a year
and I want to binge on it. ;-)

I am stashing all the bones and stuff in the freezer
as I carve up the turkey and in a few weeks I will be
making turkey noodle soup with homemade noodles. Yum.

Kate

--
Kate Connally
“If I were as old as I feel, I’d be dead already.”
Goldfish: “The wholesome snack that smiles back,
Until you bite their heads off.”
What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about?