Thanksgiving Prep

This morning was a Thanksgiving prep morning.  

I made some fresh cranberry sauce.  Sheila and I like this freshly made cranberry sauce so much that we can't eat canned cranberry sauce anymore!  It has maple syrup in it... allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon...  freshly squeezed orange juice...  lemon zest...  and a little more maple syrup.  Usually, I add some fresh blackberries or some other fresh fruit to it but we skipped that this time around.  That would have required a trip to the supermarket and we are not exposing ourselves to the supermarket while the pandemic is still in full swing.  

Once the cranberry sauce was cooked, I immediately spooned it into some Ball jars.  I let the jars sit out to cool a bit before putting them in the fridge. 

While the fresh cranberry sauce was cooling, I got started on making a fresh white cheese sauce.  This sauce will be used for a green bean dish...  fry up some bacon...  then saute some onion and garlic in the bacon grease...  then add the green beans, sliced almonds and chopped bacon...  heat it up...  then add the white cheese sauce.  We want the green beans to remain firm, even crisp, if possible...  

I'll top the green bean dish with freshly fried onion straws.  This is another dish that we enjoy but, for some reason, I only seem to make it for Thanksgiving.  I cannot stomach the usual and far too popular green bean mush in Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup...  that stuff is like eating baby puke after the baby ate green beans... uggg.  I'll stick with my recipe instead!

We're making a relatively small turkey breast tomorrow for the two of us.  Some mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and, of course, the aforementioned green bean dish and fresh cranberry sauce.  

We usually celebrate all through this long weekend but this year will be quiet in our house so we can remain as healthy as possible.  I suspect we'll be watching a lot of movies!