Scattered Thoughts . . .

Thankfully, I think I am done with another day of Thanksgiving food prep! Sweet Italian sausage for my Country Harvest Turkey Dressing. Earlier this afternoon, I cooked up some sweet Italian sausage for my Country Harvest Turkey Dressing. This sausage will get chopped up with some onions, sage, corn bread, seasoned bread, garlic, thyme, and dried cranberries... then add some chicken stock... into the oven for a bit... this should be some pretty tasty dressing! So, the sausage is now cooked, moved to the fridge and ready to be chopped tomorrow.  While the sausage was cooking, I had four sweet potatoes in the oven. These sweet potatoes will be for my Bourbon Glazed Yams. After cutting the sweet potatoes, I'll add some butter, maple syrup, molasses, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and some bourbon. Throw this concoction in the oven and then finish the last few minutes with some mini marshmallows on top until they are browned.  So, the sweet potatoes are ready to go

Since Adam can't be with us this Thanksgiving, I thought it would be appropriate to bring some local flavor from his new home to our own Thanksgiving Day. We've done this with every holiday since Adam left... we've brought food to our table from the area of the world in which he is currently living.  On this Thanksgiving Day, I will be drinking a tasty Pilsner which was brewed in the Munich style! Although this particular Pilsner beer, Idletyme, was brewed right here in Stowe, Vermont, it is a golden Pilsner beer in the Munich style so it is quite different than all the overly hoppy beer found here in the northeastern US. I prefer lighter, golden beers to darker, foamy, hoppy beer. That being said, I also love smooth dark porters as well. I've never tasted this local brew but I'm looking forward to having a bit tomorrow as I finish preparing our Thanksgiving meal and socialize with some close friends. Adam will be enjoying a Thanksgiving meal with co-wor

It is only Monday but I started my Thanksgiving Day meal prep this morning.  I made some southern sweet tea infused with mint. I put a fresh sprig of mint into each jar of tea then placed them in the fridge. They'll continue to build flavor over the next few days until Thanksgiving.  Then I made some fresh blackberry syrup... poured it into ice cube trays... and now we'll have blackberry ice cubes to add to the sweet tea! Of course, we'll also have some lemon slices ready to go too...

Sheila and I had a really nice and rather laid back time on Thanksgiving Day.   We started the day watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while eating breakfast. Then we headed to Sheila's parents' house for dinner with her family.   We started with a few drinks... some beer, some Apple Cider Mimosa's...  then we sat down for dinner shortly after everyone had arrived.   Dinner was delicious so I have to say that Sue did a great job. I honestly don't believe I have the energy to put together such a large meal! I'm not sure what happened for the next couple of hours after dinner because I fell asleep for a couple of hours! Then, we all Skyped with Adam who is located on the other side of the Earth. It sounds like he had a really nice Thanksgiving with his new extended family.  We called it an early night and headed home because I was exhausted and experiencing more bone pain than usual. Shortly after arriving back home, I needed a bit of a snack s

Homemade cranberry sauce... the white chunks are pears... I'm definitely  no fan of Thanksgiving dinner... I never have been... too much food... not even all that satisfying yet far too much work... even more work to clean up... and, as far as I'm concerned, turkey is really only good for a club sandwich paired with tons of bacon.  Every now and then, however, I do get a craving for mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, corn and some chicken breasts. Earlier today I had one of these cravings. The grandchildren are coming over for dinner with us tomorrow night so I decided we should have this pre-Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow evening. In order to ease the cooking burden tomorrow while the kids are here (and so I can play with them for a bit), I decided to make the homemade cranberry sauce this evening.  One of my sisters sent me a recipe for cranberry sauce a few years ago and it was pretty good... a little too 'orangy' for me, but it was good. As