Catch up #4: Thanksgiving

In my State Department Roundup post, I briefly mentioned what we had planned for Thanksgiving. But here I can get into depth.

Here we found almost everything we needed for the actual Thanksgiving dinner. My sister in law did need to bring down french fried onions and pumpkin for pie. Other than that I found everything I needed for the meal, and John bought a few finishing touches for the tables. In all, we spent (apart from the turkey) over $400. It's definitely cheaper to ship stuff I think. Anyway, I have to figure out a way to spend less next year.

I usually work Tuesdays and Wednesdays but I took the afternoon of Wednesday off so I could begin cooking. On Wednesday I made the homemade cream of mushroom soup for the green bean casserole and then made the bean mixture and I made the sweet potato casserole. These two things took longer than I thought they would because I had to re-make the green bean casserole because fresh, not canned beans, were requested. That's all I got accomplished that day. I also made stuffing on Wednesday. Next year I won't be doing this because the next day it was dry and not as appealing as it should've been.

On Thanksgiving, I had P make the mashed potatoes (because she's the only one here that makes good ones), and she helped clean up after me every time I made a mess, and I made a lot of messes. John made the pecan pie, and I made the cinnamon rolls and quiches for breakfast the next day. I also made homemade rolls because we couldn't find rolls in the can or in the bakery.

John's brother and his wife came in at about 1:00 that afternoon and they were at our house before 2:00. It was so great to see them and their daughter (more about their visit in the next post). Our Peace Corps Volunteers arrived promptly at 3:00 (the time I requested they be here). We were supposed to have dinner at 4:00, but my turkey wasn't done. So dinner was late...think after 5:00.

We asked P to eat with us, and she finally did. She wanted to eat in the kitchen but we finally convinced her to eat at our table. Dinner was great, it felt so much like home to have family there and to have the traditional dinner. Great conversation, good pie, great holiday.

Our complete Thanksgiving Menu:


Turkey
Stuffing
Corn
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Cranberry Sauce
Rolls
pickles/olives
pecan pie
pumpkin pie
cherry pie

Morning After:
Homemade cinnamon rolls
quiche