Thanksgiving mealplanning!

When I was a little girl, I used to dream about making Thanksgiving dinner for my whole family. Not the potluck kind, the kind where I do everything myself and wow everyone with my culinary skills and my ability to keep it all together.

Most little girls dream of fairy tales and weddings. I dreamed of stemware and poultry.

Last year, I did a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for my parents, who were in town the weekend prior. Emily and Kirby were still living in Del Rio, and Emily's friend Ann was in town as well. 

Last year's spread: Brined fresh turkey, sage and apple stuffing, gravy, cranberry orange sauce, sweet potato casserole, whiskey glazed carrots, mixed mashed potatoes

Emily was just starting to show with Lily in this photo. On actual Thanksgiving, it was just the four of us, and we had a much smaller turkey dinner. It was nice, and I had a blast arranging all the recipes. But it wasn't the same, since most of our family wasn't there.

But THIS year, we've convinced my mom and Mikey, Art's parents, Charlie, my Aunt Cathy and my Grandma Jean to all come down for the actual turkey day! And, believe it or not, they're all DRIVING the 24 hours from Dayton to Del Rio. Better them than me!

My brothers and their respective girlfriends, Dawn and Jamie, are currently on sibling probation for their absence. I will forgive them on Christmas. I think.

Anyway, here's what I've got on docket for this week, Thanksgiving recipes included. Links up where available!

Sunday:

• French onion sliced steak with Grueyere sauce and green beans Do you think they have Gruyere cheese in Del Rio? No. I'm using Swiss.

Monday:

• Roast chicken, broccoli with garlic, sweet potato biscuits

Tuesday:

• dinner out at one of the two non-chain restaurants in Del Rio (there's a third, but it's inedible)

Wednesday:

• Thanksgiving prep:
• Brine the turkey. I am extremely picky about my turkeys. I refuse to buy a frozen one, which means I can't get my turkey in Del Rio. The past two years we have ordered a free-range turkey from Whole Foods and driven the 6 hours round-trip to San Antonio to get it. Worth it!
• Make mashed potatoes and refrigerate (recipe: potatoes, cream cheese, salt, pepper.)
• Make stuffed mushroom stuffing and refrigerate separate from reserved mushroom caps for tomorrow's appetizer
• Make Roasted butternut squash soup and refrigerate
• Breakfast: Pumpkin Pie Smoothies
• Dinner: Braised chicken (Side note: This is from my old blog, and I wrote it just a few days after Art proposed. Ah, memories.)

Thursday:

• Breakfast: Art's pumpkin pancakes, turkey bacon, eggs
• Appetizers:
• Stuffed mushrooms (my own recipe... someday I'll post it!)
• Brie en Croute
• Thanksgiving dinner:
• Roasted turkey
• Gravy (someone else is doing this, maybe Grandma Jean. Gravy stumps me)
• Sweet potato casserole (Art's mom's recipe)
• Cornbread dressing with sausage and apples
• dinner rolls from the Kitchen Bible (best cookbook ever!)
• Roasted asparagus with tomatoes and parmesan
• Mashed potatoes
• Cranberry-orange sauce
• Dreamy apple pie with hard sauce
• Traditional pumpkin pie (made with PW's pie crust)

 I hope you all have a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving!

USA! USA! USA! ... and a major bummer.

It's storming in Del Rio right now, and if there's one thing Peanut hates, it's thunder. So bear with me - if it looks like I have a crazy typo, it's because of the 12-pound Chiweenie trying to get as close to me as physically possible.

This weekend, Art and I had a few people over to watch the World Cup game, USA v. Ghana. As Art said, "you don't have to love soccer, just America." So I whipped up some pico de gallo and guacamole (nothing more American than that, right?) and Art made me a pitcher of margaritas. Well, it was intended to pass around, but for some reason I was the only one who decided to take part. How strange.

Unlike this picture shows, we actually do have plenty of seating in our house. I guess these guys just really wanted to sit by each other.

Kirby, Art, and Paul... really into the game, I suppose! You can see Peanut's little ear next to Art's leg... all the boys on the couch!

Unfortunately, USA lost the match. We found ourselves wondering what to do with our Saturday. Well, we live in Del Rio, so we did what every Del Rioan should do on Saturday - we went to the lake!

This is my brother-in-law Kirby. As you can see, it's hard to be grumpy on the lake! Especially when you are full of margaritas!

Art and Paul, standard.

I'm pretty sure these people told me their names, but I forget. But we enjoyed some good time in the lake, and I attempted to swim.

Then... bummer.

What you are looking at now is the final resting place for Art's wedding ring. Yes, just shy of the two-month mark, the original wedding ring is gone. :( It was a total accident, but unfortunately there isn't anything we can do. Kirby (bless his heart) called a scuba diver friend of his who said he'd go dive for it, but we aren't feeling very optimistic. I cried a completely ridiculous amount over it, but once we got out for the night I was fine. Fortunately, I was given a plain silver band my senior year from my sorority, Pi Beta Phi, that fits Art perfectly, so that is what he is currently wearing. It's kind of cool, actually, because Art's grandmother and great aunt were both Pi Phi's, so it has a little bit of meaning. We are going to San Antonio to get a new one this weekend, and then hopefully we can have it blessed and have a little ceremony with the priest here. I'll post some pictures if we do that! :)

Not too much on docket for this week! Just cleaning and hanging out with my family. Just another day in paradise!