Thanksgiving Wrap Up

Thanksgiving this year differed greatly from last year's Spanish extravaganza in that we went "normal" and had turkey and all the fixings. I also did not get to have my family down to visit or get to go home to be with them, which was a bummer, but luckily our friends took us in and we prepared quite the feast.



To start, Stacey and Chris did some lovely appetizers of meat, cheese, veggies, and dip, to which I added my deviled eggs. Here's where my slightly-off dishes began. I was so busy on Sunday prepping everything I could in advance of the big day, I didn't carefully time my hard boiled eggs. Fearing the green-tinted yolk syndrome, I dunked them into the ice bath a little too soon and had to discard quite a bit of the yolk. Everyone liked how tangy they were, but I enjoy a little more creamy structure to my deviled eggs.

Like I mentioned, I spent a lot of time prepping myself on Sunday, and again on Wednesday, for the big day since I knew Stacey would be busy cooking the turkey and many of her other wonderful side dishes. While it turned out to be a time saver, unfortunately almost all of my dishes turned out to be just short of perfection. I know what you're thinking, "I'm sure it was fine! It still tasted good, right?" Well, yes, for the most part. But I've made almost all of these things before and had them turn out so tastebud-meltingly good (yep, that's a term now), that anything short of that felt like a disappointment.

From bottom left clockwise: cauliflower gratin, butterhorn rolls, cornbread andouille sausage stuffing, brussel sprouts with garlic and pine nuts

The highlight of my part of the meal had to the butterhorn rolls. I am shocked and amazed that Shawn and I didn't dive right into them when they were still warm and the intoxicating smell was filling the car on the way there, but somehow we resisted. Too bad too...I bet they would have been divine. Lucky for us, we have 5 of them sitting in the freezer for a future date.

Overall, it was a lovely Thanksgiving with great friends who know how to cook a mean turkey and sides. I am eternally grateful to be able to spend Thanksgiving with our friends who are like family to us.