Belated Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Yesterday was thanksgiving and we hosted our very first thanksgiving feast at our humble abode. Mr. L and I really had a great time with my in-laws. Mr. L and I were really looking forward to it. We made sure we had everything we needed from plates, stemware, flatware, table cloth, napkins, napkin rings and of course food and drinks, etc.
Plastic cups and paper plates were not going to cut it this time that just seems so juvenile for this occasion. I can almost hear my dear mother talking in my ear; she’s not a big fan of using plastic cups and plastic cutlery. She thinks that you might as well go the extra mile in getting glass stemware since they usually sell affordable ones anyway and you can always reuse them.
As you know, I’m very OC (
obsessive compulsive) and a perfectionist to a fault so I really wanted to make sure we were prepared for this event. We’ve a made a list of things we needed several weeks ago and we just seem to keep updating it every weekend until the culmination of this event. Lol, every other weekend we would check our list, check off our list and would end up revising it anyway making sure we have all of our bases covered. We collected all of the coupons that we received in the mail. We hopped from one store to another (from
Target, Kohl’s, Wal-Mart and Bed, Bath and Beyond) to get the best deals for the items that we needed.
Since we don’t celebrate thanksgiving in Manila and I really never bring anything but my fabulous self (lol), an empty stomach and bottle of wine (
to keep me in a festive mood the whole day) to the ones I’ve attended and my in-laws hosted in the past. Needless to say, I really don’t have a clue what to cook for thanksgiving. Of course I do know the basic ones that we definitely must have like--- a turkey, a pasta/lasagna dish
(since my in-laws are of Italian descent), chips and dip, cranberry sauce, stuffing (
which I do not have a clue how to make) and side dishes. So I was starting to stress out and was panicking a bit about it because I’ve never really cooked for so many people before, never roasted a turkey and I don’t have any idea on what side dishes to prepare and I didn’t want to serve a mediocre dish I wanted our dishes to be the best there is… well according to my own standards that is lol.
Thank God, I found this cookbook last month as we were checking out of A&P. There are a lot of good recipes on here to prepare for thanksgiving. One weekend, Mr. L and I went through the whole cookbook to decide which dishes we were going to prepare for our feast. It was tough deciding which ones we wanted to prepare lol.
So here’s our menu (most of the dishes we got from this cookbook):
Chips and Dip
Meat Lasagna (recipe c/o my mother dearest)
Creamed Peas and Carrots
Celebration Green Beans
Sweet Potato Casserole
Mashed Potatoes
Ultimate Macaroni N’ Cheese with Bacon (Mr. L found this online and “cooked” it)
Apple Walnut Sausage Stuffing
Turkey
Gravy (made by my SIL)
Cranberry Sauce (straight out of the can lol)
Deluxe Pumpkin Cheesecake
Apple Pie (made by Tony)
Pumpkin Pie (Tony's present for my BIL---brother-in-law)
Drinks: Wine and Soda
Of course since I’ve never roasted turkey in my whole entire life, I’ve asked Mr. L to ask my SIL (sister-in-law), Jamie and her boyfriend Tony to make the turkey for us and the gravy too. My MIL (mother-in-law), gave us the free 20 lbs. turkey that she got from Pathmark.
So the weekend before thanksgiving, I prepared a list of things that we needed to get at the grocery (Shop-Rite) and list of things that we should get from our local farmer’s market the day before to ensure that our produce will still be fresh for thanksgiving.
I also asked Mr. L to ask my SIL and Tony what we can make ahead of time because I don’t want to go crazy on the day of thanksgiving. They told us that we can make the lasagna ahead of time and just starting prepping the ingredients for all of the side dishes.
Over the weekend, Mr. L and I cleaned our place top to bottom making sure that it was spick-and-span.
On Tuesday night, I worked on my lasagna.
Wednesday night, I worked on my Deluxe Pumpkin Cheesecake. Mr. L washed our dog and cleaned the bathroom. I put all of our dishes, serving plates, glasses and wine glasses in our dish washer and changed the table cloth. Mr. L and I started prepping for ingredients for the big event and ended up staying up until 4 am lol.
Our dining table (the night before):
Table setting (the night before...without the cutlery):
Our service table:
Thanksgiving Day: Mr. L and I woke up so early because my SIL, MIL and Tony, were coming early to help us cook. Mr. L bought bagels at the Dunkin Donuts across the street and made coffee too. The next thing I remember, my SIL and Tony started cooking the turkey and everything lol. Thank God, we prepped all of the ingredients earlier so at least all my SIL and Tony had to do was cook everything. Thank God for both of them (SIL and Tony) --- they made everything lol. Mr. L “cooked” his Ultimate Mac’ N’ Cheese (with the supervision of my SIL and Tony of course).
Mr. L making his Ultimate Mac N' Cheese with Bacon with my SIL and Tony:
Our Thanksgiving Spread:
We used paper plates for the lasagna :)...
Our 20 lbs. turkey:
My SIL bought us presents: Poinsettia & my birtday card with an Express gift card :)
It was truly a beautiful thanksgiving for us. Although, our life may not be as “perfect” as others have it I honestly believe our life is perfect in its own special way. We definitely have a lot to be thankful for --- everything that God had bestowed us this year ---good, bad and the somewhere in betweens. It’s the not so perfect things, perfect and imperfect things that makes our whole unit a family. A lot may seem different from we had last year and we may not have what we want but at least we have everything we need. It’s also the simple things that you see around you the make your heart and soul happy. What a difference a year makes…the best is yet to come.
Happy Thanksgiving Y’All!
