Happy Turkey-Day

Yesterday was an overwhelming success.

The only slight snafu was that the turkey took longer to cook than I expected. I blame that entirely on our wacky oven. That's one thing I WILL NOT miss about this house. Okay, there's a lot of other stuff too, but that's probably the most annoying.

Regardless of the delayed dinner, the turkey was amazing. I've never had a brined turkey before, but wow. It's unbelievable! So juicy! It's SO easy to brine a turkey too, I don't know why more people don't do it!

We probably had enough food to feed twice the number of folks that were here. I was a little saddened actually - knowing how many people have been needing food assistance lately. We donated to the Indianapolis Interfaith Hunger Initiative when we went to church on Wednesday night, so I feel like we shared our blessings. Plus, the way Aaron is already tearing through the leftovers, it's not going to waste!

The final menu was:
blue cheese ball
deviled eggs
red beet eggs
turkey
ham
stuffing
green bean casserole
acorn squash
potato filling
baked beans
cornbread muffins
pumpkin pie
cherry pie
ditty pie
banana pudding
pumpkin cheesecake

Man, everything was AWESOME!

Thanksgiving

I am so excited. I head back to Indianapolis tomorrow, and I don't have to travel next week. I can't wait to host our first ever Thanksgiving dinner.

I have never cooked a turkey before. My mom says it's easy. I really really hope so.

This weekend we'll have to go buy the turkey and all the other stuff we need for our dishes - onion, celery, baking cups, butter, champagne. I ordered the pies through our church. Our oven is a little funny which is no good at all for baking. Save myself the heart/headache and do a little good works too (the proceeds benefit charity).

Maybe by next year... we'll have our own house to host Thanksigiving!

Misfit Thanksgiving

This is our first year in Indianapolis and we're not going home for Thanksgiving. It's too much flying in too short a period, and the airlines are always packed.

So we've got a number of friends coming over to share our Thanksgiving meal. My friend Rachael and her fiance Chris, our other friend Rachel and her son Ozan, and our friend Heather are coming so far. Rachael is bringing some traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dishes (Shoofly Pie and Potato Filling, if you're interested). Heather has offered to bring the turkey (YAY! I've been stressing about making my first turkey).

As I start to plan for the rest of our Thanksgiving meal, I cannot stop thinking about how blessed we are. This year especially, we have been given so much. Giving back to God and to our community has become more important to me than ever.

I was looking for adopt-a-family type things for Thanksgiving and came across the Mozel Sanders Foundation. They cook and provide boxed up Thanksgiving meals to thousands of people in Indianapolis. What a cool concept. I'm sure people would prefer to have a meal in their own home than some gigantic shelter.

Of course, we'll be supporting Wheeler Mission as well, which is a gigantic shelter.

I've always wanted to volunteer on Thanksgiving, but I remember from San Diego Rescue Mission that they have more volunteers than they know what to do with on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I figure they can probably use my cash more than they can use my time. *grin*