Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving dawned bright and glorious here in San Jose.  Paul spent the day putting up Christmas lights on the roof, cleaning the gutters, and doing other projects around the house.  I spent the morning in the kitchen making our Thanksgiving dinner.  Actually though, Paul put together the pumpkin pie and my mom put together the banana cream pie.  I just made the apple pie and the crusts for the other two, and Paul says that nobody eats the crusts anyway.  I also made the Lion House dinner rolls and the turkey using the recipe and tutorial from Our Best Bites.  As a special treat, Clara got to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  She was in heaven. 

Paul carved the turkey in one of my aprons.  This is actually the apron he has claimed for himself, it being the least ruffly of all my aprons.  He is hoping for a "man apron" for Christmas, whatever that is.

 

We had rolls with jam, green beans, mashed potatoes & gravy, sweet potatoes, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, Martinelli's, and fruit salad.  Clara ate her Thanksgiving dinner of a Turkey & Squash puree for lunch, and while everybody else was eating their dinner, she gnoshed on three chunks of boiled yam that I had reserved from the sweet potatoes before all the butter, brown sugar, and marshmallows were added.  She seemed to really love it and ate all three chunks with no problem.  It was so much fun having my parents and sister out here with us for the holiday.  They hadn't seen Clara since she was 3 months old and she has changed a lot since then so they especially liked being able to play with her.

  

Clara had been taking a nice long nap just prior to dinner.  We had actually just started sitting down to the table when she woke up so I went and got her.  This is how she looks right after waking up - happy and groggy.

I have got to do something with the wall behind me in this picture.  It is so barren and blah.  We had a canvas print made to go here but I want to get some white frames from Ikea and put additional family photos in them and make some sort of collage or something here, I just haven't done it yet.

Review of the dinner:  the turkey could have cooked a little longer because it was too moist in my opinion, even though the thermometer said it was done and the timer thing had popped up, but the flavor was amazing - must have been the sage butter and brining it for 24 hours in advance.  Stovetop stuffing is still my favorite, even though it isn't homemade.  Everyone else at the table admitted the same thing except my mom.  I love jellied cranberry sauce but Paul doesn't.  Paul discovered that after years of thinking he hated sweet potatoes that he actually liked these ones.  The green beans were excellent and the rolls turned out soft and buttery.  Overall, I would say that the meal was a success for my first time hosting Thanksgiving at our place.