Feeding My Soul Week - Our Thanksgiving Feast!

Since we were at the Cowboys game on Thursday, we pushed our Thanksgiving feast to Saturday!  Matt was in charge of the turkey, the headliner for the feast, while T and I made side dishes.  Deviled eggs were made early for grazing while the real cooking magic started.  We made cranberry sauce from scratch from a recipe we acquired from a retired Texas schoolteacher - can't go wrong there! Next, we made our traditional sweet potato casserole, which is truthfully more of a dessert.  We followed that with a green bean casserole, which while not fancy, is a must have.  This summer, Matt's mom finally handed down to T, her sister's long-awaited recipe for Bacon-Corn.  This is an uber-decadent recipe for corn cooked with truly law-breaking amounts of butter, sugar and bacon.  We finished it all off with macaroni and cheese, stuffing and pumpkin pies.

The Headliner!

Almost done...

We each sat with our well-earned  plates by the fire and gave thanks for the things that matter - family and health, our strong pack.  The pups shared in the feast, each with a third of the enormous turkey neck and some gizzards.  With their sensitive snooters I can only imagine how alluring the kitchen must have seemed.  It was only fair that they share in the feast!

Arwen's Pack Thanksgiving feast - canine edition  

This was the first of my consecutive vacation days, spent with the people and dogs that matter the most.  And although we cleaned as we cooked, I was in no rush to clean a single dish.  But now several days later, and many leftover turkey sandwiches later, I never want to eat turkey again.  Maybe next year we can continue the Maine tradition of Thanksgiving lobster, ordered from our favorite wicked good lobster purveyor, the Lobster Pound in Portland...

Tom the...Lobster?

Please don't forget, we're in the last week of collecting items for the Military Dogs and their handlers in Kabul for the holiday care packages.  If you'd like to send some cheer along, please see my post here.