We Did A Lot of Cooking in the Last Two Days

It's late, but the cooking is done, everybody is way too full, and believe it or not, the dishes are done and put away.  The kitchen is clean!  My new Pampered Chef cookware definitely got a good workout today.

Most of our Thanksgiving dishes were big hits.  The turkey was really good.  I followed the recipe posted previously on the blog with one exception.  I prepped the turkey the night before.  Once it was rinsed, patted dry and stuffed with the aromatics, I prepared an herb butter (one stick of butter softened mixed with 1 tsp Poultry Seasoning and 1 tsp Sage) to smear under the skin and all over the skin.  It went into the cooking bag and then into the refrigerator overnight.  Then, into the oven around 12:30 Thanksgiving Day.  By 4:30 it was out of the oven and smelling delicious.  I let it rest for an hour before carving.  Mmmm Good!

Both sweet potato recipes were big hits.  And . . . the pumpkin pie was amazing.  I'll definitely be saving these recipes for next year.  Here's a tell-all picture of what Christian thinks of Grandma's cooking.  Actually, he was eating rice cereal.  Hope he'll like my cooking more as he gets older.

After dinner, the Christmas decorations came out.  We put up a lovely Frasier Fur Christmas tree last night.  It is a really pretty tree with a great shape and it smells terrific.  The transformation from Thanksgiving to Christmas has been completed.  The wreaths are up, the snow globes are out, and the ornaments are hung.  Eddie put even more lights outside.  Our front yard is bright as daylight when the lights are on.  It looks good.  It will be fun to see it in the snow.  

We'll be headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the weekend for Thanksgiving with my family.  It's always fun to be together.  We'll have a big dinner again tomorrow evening.   It certainly isn't hard to count our blessings this year.