In the days leading up to tomorrow's holiday, I tried planning a meal for myself. There were all sorts of ideas roaming around in my head. This will be the first Thanksgiving that I will spend alone in over a decade. But, our family decided to be safe, rather than sorry!
I had originally planned to buy a Butterball Turkey Breast. However, when I shopped, I found they had already been snatched up by others who are also likely to be having solo or smaller gatherings too. So, I decided to go ahead and buy a 14 pound Butterball turkey, roast it up, and make all the trimmings.
This morning I peeled 10 pounds of potatoes, along with several yams. In addition to regular mashed potatoes, I also make what I call, Carolina Low Country potatoes - a mixture of regular potatoes and yams mashed together, with chopped green onion, sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, along with fennel and caraway seeds.
I also made cornbread stuffing with golden raisins and pine-nuts. On the back burner the cranberry sauce simmered. Once the turkey was nearly done, I sautéed bacon with onion and slivered almonds. This was co-mingled with the green beans once they finished steaming to al-dente.
You would have thought a family of a dozen or so was showing up for dinner, but it was just me with my two felines on the day before Thanksgiving.
I almost forgot to take a picture because I had been nipping on a bottle of Anderson Valley Bourbon Barrel Stout. The brew absolutely caused me to forget to put a helping of stuffing on the plate before taking this photo.
There is a full dinner plate saved for tomorrow's holiday. This evening I went about the task of turning all the rest into TV dinners for the freezer.
Tomorrow will be a more restful day! I foresee a couple logs on the fire. My heated massage pad will find way to the couch. I plan to spend the day in my pajamas watching movies, and enjoying a sweet daydream of 2021, or two!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Hello Mryl, what a beautiful blog post. You've been busy and deserve a few nips at the bottle of Anderson Valley Bourbon Barrel Stout.
