Thanksgiving Plans

It is Thanksgiving time. I love this time of year...I think this is the one time a year I actually miss living in Indiana (where we are from). The best thing about living on the Central Coast is the neutral weather all year long. I hate extreme weather either way...so you can imagine how miserable I was in Minot, North Dakota for 4 1/2 years! Anyway...I do miss the fall leaves in Indiana, and spending the holiday with family.

This year we are having some of David's troops over for dinner. When David was an Airman, before we were married, he always had supervisors who would invite him over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It meant a lot to him, so we try to do the same thing.

We are planning on having the usual Thanksgiving fare:

Turkey
Last year I learned about brining a turkey. We tried it, and it turned out fabulous...so I will brine the bird again. I would love a deep fryer for deep fried Turkey...but since The Man is convinced we would burn the house down...that won't happen.

Ham
Spiral Cut with a brown sugar coating...in other words Hillshire Farms :) I would love it to be a Honey Baked Ham...from the Honey Baked Ham Store...but since a. there is not a HBHS around here...and b. we are to poor to have one mailed to us...Hillshire it is.

Mashed Potatoes
Pretty boring...but no BOXED Flakes are allowed in this house! I am thinking about roasting some garlic and adding the potatoes though.

Stuffing
My favorite recipe for Stuffing is Sage Sausage Stuffing. I also *gasp* stuff the bird! My recipe makes a lot...so what wont fit in the bird I just bake in a dish. The stuffing in the dish looks prettier, so it goes faster...fine with me, leave me all the "good" stuff :)

Noodles
We are Hoosiers...so that means, you can't have a family get-together without noodles. I used to kill myself making them from scratch. I would mix the dough (without a recipe...because no one really *has a recipe for noodles...you just "add flour, water/milk, and egg till it looks right"...) roll the dough out, cut and flour the noodles, then spend three hours cleaning up the mess you just made. One year, I was desperate. I had three little ones, and a house full of people coming over. So, I broke down and bought the frozen ones from the grocery store...and *not one person could tell the difference! I have never made homemade noodles again! The frozen ones are outrageously expensive...but when you figure the time making them, cleaning up...and my sanity...they are a STEAL!

Corn
Nothing special here :/

Greenbean Casserole
Again...no good Hoosier can have a get together without the greenish gray glob that is greenbean casserole! The Man loves it! He also loves pork rinds though...so who knows?

Mashed Sweet Potatoes
To The Man's complete horror! He is against anything that involves a sweet potato. Chaney loves them though, and since getting her to eat anything that resembles a vegetable is a feat worse than death...I feel like I have to encourage her by making a vegetable she actually likes. Though, calling a sweet potato a vegetable could be stretching things a bit :/

Cranberry Sauce
The good ol' "it slurps as it slides out of the can" stuff. Why? I don't have a clue...no one eats it...but we can't have Thanksgiving without it.

Rolls
Nothing special here...

Apple Pie
Pecan Pie
and Pumpkin Pie
You would *not believe how hard I work on these pies, Internet! It takes a lot of work to pull them out of the freezer, take them out of the cardboard boxes (being careful as to not get a papercut or break a nail), and put them in the oven! The sacrifices I make for this family!

So, what is going to be on your Thanksgiving table this year?