blue artichoke

Gentleman Caller and I returned last night from our Thanksgiving visit with his family. Our Thanksgiving meal was fantastic and plentiful, despite a near-catastrophe with the turkey. My father-in-law usually grills the turkey on a rotisserie, bundled up in the back yard. After only 20 minutes of rotating, the rotisserie broke. We all rushed around like a turkey with its head cut off, trying to rearrange the cooking schedule to free up an oven for the turkey, but grill-master that he is, he just removed the turkey from the rotisserie, put it in the pan he had on the grill to catch the juices, and grilled the bird, old-school style. The bird might have caught on fire a few times, but it eventually settled down and cooked up nicely, and on schedule.

I made a baked apple and cranberry dish. The recipe is from my sister-in-law, but I've prepared it for the last two years. It's very easy:

Apple-Cranberry Dish

Wash, core and cut apples into chunks (don't peel), ~ 6 cups. I didn't measure the apples; I just cut up 12 apples, fed one to the demanding babies underfoot and used the other eleven for the dish. I used Granny Smith, but other good baking apples would probably do just as well. Toss the apple chunks with a bag of cranberries and a cup of sugar, then transfer to a greased 13x9" dish (preferably glass). Next, mix 1 cup of brown sugar with 1/3 c. of flour and sprinkle over top of the apple mixture. Finally, melt a stick of butter and drizzle over the brown sugar mixture. Bake at 350 for 1 hour. This dish smells great as it cooks.

Along with this dish and the turkey, we had marinated green beans, glazed sweet-and-spicy meatballs, chicken & dressing, sweet potato casserole (half topped with pecans and half topped with marshmallows, to keep everyone in the family happy), frozen cherry salad, crudities and, of course, gravy. For dessert, gooey pumpkin butter cake and banana pudding. What a feast! I've said it before, and it still holds true: Thanksgiving dinner is my favorite meal of the year, and this one did not disappoint. Everyone ate too much and lolled around the house for the rest of the day. GC and I took his nephew for a walk around the neighborhood (we walked, he rode a big wheel) for some post-feeding frenzy exercise. We recovered from our lethargy just enough to go out that evening for drinks with some of GC's high school friends, where topics of conversation ranged from the hygenic merits of wiping front-to-back or back-to-front (doesn't matter), the difference between Sheila E (drummer) and Sheena Easton (singer), and the geometry of triangles.

The next morning we headed over to GC's grandparents house for a big country ham breakfast. His grandparents cook as if they're feeding the whole neighborhood: biscuits, red-eye gravy, a platter of country ham, bacon, leftover turkey, sliced tomatoes, scrambled eggs, hash browns and plenty of coffee and orange juice. We packed it all away, leaving very few leftovers, and loosened our belts a little bit. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and this is the king of breakfasts. After the breakfast feast, we helped GC's parents decorate their house for Christmas: the girls decorated the tree and the guys hung the wreaths. With many helping hands, this doesn't take very long at all. GC spent the rest of the afternoon playing disc golf. I napped. With both of our appetites somewhat restored, we took GC's other grandmother out to dinner. I had a salad. Then we headed out again for a night on the town with GC's friends.

As if we needed to eat more food, we went out for a big pancake breakfast with GC's parents on Saturday before we got on the road back home. About an hour after we pulled into our driveway, friends came over to watch the big game between Missouri and rival Kansas. This was a night game, so we cooked several frozen pizzas. Friends brought over nachos, chips, bacon dip with beer bread, and peanut-butter chocolate bars. We ate a lot and consumed many, many shots as we loudly and obscenely cheered MU to a victory.

And now, I'm tuckered out. What a great Thanksgiving.

GtKAaY: How was your Thanksgiving? What dish would cause a revolt if missing from your Thanksgiving menu?