Thanksgiving Prep

Today I'm prepping for Thanksgiving. We leave for Roundup tonight and we'll have Thanksgiving there tomorrow. Then we head home tomorrow night and I would love to return to a clean home! We'll see if that happens....

In prepping for tomorrow I learned something new. You can make mashed potatoes ahead of time in the crock pot!! How cool is that?? I'm trying it, so we'll see how it turns out tomorrow. I'm using this recipe (though I didn't put the egg whites in it) and so far it tastes really good! If it turns out tomorrow it will definitely be something to remember for the future since the recipe says it can be refrigerated for up to 3 days before you serve it!

In other news, I used store bought pie crusts this year. Yeah, I know... I shouldn't have, but I did. And do you know what happened when I baked my (dairy free) pumpkin pies? Yes, the crust got WAY darker than I wanted it to! *sigh* That's what I get for not making my own crusts. But I just cut the crimped dark edge off and, though it's not as pretty, I think it'll be fine. I think the other pie I'm going to make is a peanut butter pie (how traditional, eh?) and that takes a graham cracker crust, so we should be just fine. Oh, and it's a no bake, which makes it easier. I'll have to take a trip to the grocery store to make that, but I need to anyway to finish the strawberry pretzel salad.

I wonder what time we're leaving this evening? I'm guessing 5, when Leif stops working. Eek! That gives me 2.5 hours to get a lot done!

Great deal!

So Taylor told me about a great deal at Albertsons yesterday. I didn't make it to the store until after 9pm, but the sale was running until Midnight. Whew! =D Wanna know what I got?

For $6.39 I got 2 Sara Lee pies and 2 half gallons of Breyers ice cream. Sweet! (In more ways than one...) They had a special where if you bought a Sara Lee frozen pie then you got one free, and two free half gallons of ice cream. So I got an apple pie, a pumpkin pie, chocolate mint ice cream, and vanilla bean ice cream!

I don't know if I'll use them for Thanksgiving, since I have plans to make my own pies and I think Wenda is providing a pie, but it's nice to know I have them on hand just in case!

OAMC

Once a month cooking....

I am becoming more and more interested in this idea. Once I start cooking or baking, it's usually pretty easy for me to whip up a bunch of stuff at once, so if I were organized I could probably get a bunch of meals taken care of this way. I used to do something like that when I worked, but have fallen out of the habit in the last couple years.

Here's a website on OAMC with some good tips to remember.

Also, we have a ton of ground beef in our freezer right now that I ought to deal with at some point. I rarely use ground beef, though, because I hate browning it. But this website has a great idea for browning a large portion of ground beef all at once. I'll have to try it!

Thanksgiving

We're having Thanksgiving in Roundup this year. I offered to bring the bulk of the food, and Thanksgiving is next week, so I suppose I ought to start figuring out what to bring, when to cook it, and how to pull this whole thing off....

Let's see... guests will include...

Leif, Elizabeth, Ellie (3)
Terry, Wenda (2)
Rolan, Gayle (2)
Eric (1)
Marsha, +1, 2 kids (4)

So that's about a dozen people to plan food for. So far, so good.

Requisite Thanksgiving food... (*provided by me)

Turkey (Terry and Wenda?)
Stuffing*
Green Beans
Yambake*
Pretzel Salad*
Mashed Potatoes*
Gravy*
Rolls
Ham*
Relish dish
Cranberry sauce*
Cider*
Pies

Notes:

Yambake can be made up ahead of time, refrigerated, and baked that morning (35 min bake time)

Pretzel salad can be made up ahead of time and refrigerated.

Ham can be made in the crock pot.

Turkey can be cooked ahead of time and frozen, then reheated that morning OR deep fried that morning.

Pies can be baked ahead of time or purchased. *gasp!*

Mashed potatoes will have to be made that morning, I think, but perhaps the potatoes can be cut up ahead of time...

SOOOOO.... it looks like the following items can be brought by someone else if they wish:

* Relish tray (olives, pickles, etc.)
* Green bean casserole (if anyone is particular to that - or I can just bring canned green beans)
* If Terry and Wenda insist on white gravy, they can bring it.
* Rolls
* Pies (I will bring at least one, if not two, but if someone else really wants to provide them, they can)
* Other salads

Dinner Tonight

Greek Salad

All I have to do is figure out the calories.

Hmmm...

I put away all that laundry from my last post, but do you know how many baskets full of laundry I have in my bedroom right now that need to get put away?

THREE.

I sense a recurring problem.

So much laundry.

There is so much laundry piled up at my house it's not even funny. 3 baskets of clean laundry that need to be put away, and two piles of dirty laundry that need to be washed. Where does it all come from, and how can we possibly have closets full of clothes with all this other stuff not even in them?! Perhaps it is time to weed out the old stuff again?