Sick But Thankful

Still nursing my cold, though it's nothing to complain about. Just some congestion and a slight sore throat.

Hubby let me sleep in this morning. He got up at the crack of dawn to put the turkey in the roaster grill. It took several hours to cook, but that was good, because we needed the time to get the rest of the food done. I made cornbread stuffing, orange-cranberry relish, and a gravy which took way too long and wasn't that good. Plus, Hubby said he's doesn't really like gravy anyway, so I will not be making that from scratch again! It started out ominously, as it involved using the giblets from the turkey. I realized I'm a much stronger person than I used to be. Washing those organs and seeing them laid out on the cutting board reminded me of biology class. I felt slightly squeamish as I chopped up that poor turkey's innards, but I soldiered on. Then again, I never had a problem with dissections in biology. It's live things and their blood that make me pass out. Anyway, after working on the gravy for way too long, I wasn't liking the still visible organ meats floating around, so I strained those out and gave them to the cat and dogs, even if the recipe didn't call for it. Yeah, I think next year I'll just leave those giblets in the plastic bag where they belong.

The stuffing and relish were good, though, and the boys both liked them, so that's always a plus. Hubby prepared the turkey -- he made a rub for it last night, and it smoked all day, and turned out very good -- and a potato dish that was supposed to be like smashed potatoes or twice baked potatoes. They were a little off, visually, but they tasted yummy.

As I was saying, the boys liked everything, even though they got antsy before "lunner" as we served it at 2:30. It took that long for the turkey to cook. They had some snacks around noon, and before we ate, Hutton asked for tacos, and Harrison for hotdogs, but they both seemed to like what they got instead. When I was a kid, I only ate turkey, potatoes and bread with Thanksgiving. Over the years I started to add in the sweet potatoes, gravy and stuffing, but I was about 12 before I was eating everything my mom cooked for Thanksgiving. I'm thankful my kids are more open to trying different foods! Hubby doesn't like sweet potatoes, cranberries, or, as I mentioned earlier, gravy. I didn't make sweet potatoes, but I made the others, and will probably continue making the things I know he doesn't like, just because I like them and they're traditional.

Hubby's mom sent us a frozen pumpkin pie that a man in their hometown makes, and I heated that up in the oven and had a small piece a minute ago. It was quite good, considering it had been frozen and mailed!

I didn't get around to showering until 1 this afternoon, as I was trying to get most of the cooking done before hand. Of course, in the 20 minutes I was upstairs showering and getting dressed, the boys got into the flour I had measured out for the gravy, and left on the counter. I knew something was up when our dog Sally, the black lab mix, came in to the bathroom with white kid-sized handprints on her back. Then I heard the vacuum running. Hubby may not have been watching them, but at least he vacuumed up the mess.

Off to loll on the couch for a while. Happy Turkey Day, everyone!