A little bit of Thanksgiving

We are dual citizens in our house, Half American/Half Canadian. We live in the States now and I try to honour as many of the Canadian traditions as I can, this includes having TWO Thanksgivings. Yes its a lot of work but as we say around here "You can never be too Thankful" Come Christmas time, I am ready for ham or prime rib as I have kind of had my fill of turkey :)

I just dont think it should end there though, you know? We have been going through a lot lately and I just realized that we haven't really taken the time to be thankful for the good stuff in our lives. There is SO much good stuff, we are truly blessed beyond words. So, in addition to the two I will already be doing this year, today is sort of a "remember to the Thankful, Thanksgiving". And what better way than to go all out with a turkey dinner?

Here is a little look at what Thanksgiving day looks like in our house.

Turkey of course... stuffed with apples, onions, and bacon. Yes Bacon. This is a tip I learned from my mother in law. Instead of putting butter on your turkey, use bacon grease, it tastes SO much better! So here what goes in the turkey

I didn't have any fresh onions and really didn't have the energy to go to the store so dried onion to the rescue. I could be all crunchy and tell you I dried the onions from own garden but for $3. at Costco, why bother? A little trick to stuffing your turkey, put it in a large bowl and then just slide everything in. I don't know why no one ever told me that, its the easiest way to do it. Rub the bacon grease over the outside and whatever spices you want. I dont really add any more salt because the bacon takes care of that. This next part is kind of sacrilegious, so if you're a purist skip this, go on... I'll wait. For the rest of you, use a turkey bag, yes really! It makes a really moist turkey, with brown crispy skin and it cuts your cooking time way down. 3 hours for a 20 pound bird? Sign me up!

OK Purists, you can come back now :) Now put your turkey in the oven, mine is in there right now so no pictures yet.

I made my husband peel potatoes, if the kids are around they get the job too. Why? Because I hate it. Its the worst job in the kitchen as far as I'm concerned, I dont know why it just is. He wouldnt let me take pictures of him though. Take my word for it he looked adorable... oh and the potatoes are great too. I like to soak the potatoes for a couple of hours in salted water before boiling them. I dont have any really sound reason for this but its how my mum did it, so that's what I do. I will turn the heat on an hour or so before the turkey is ready to come out and then mash them with canned milk and butter.


Dessert is cooking too, how many ovens do I have? Just one. I am making baked apples with a crumble top in the crock pot. They smell heavenly. I used a basic crumble recipe, I call it the 1/2 cup recipe. 1/2 cup of butter, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of old fashioned oats and a 1/2 cup of flour. I throw in some pumpkin pie spice too because I love it. Mix with a pastry cutter, or if youre like me and have no idea where yours is, use a couple of forks, or your hands... I had some left over so I threw some frozen blueberries in a small oven safe dish and put the rest of the crumble on top of it and threw it on the oven while it was preheating. YUM!

I cored the apples without cutting off the bottoms then cut out a bit more space then stuffed the crumb topping in. Cook on low for 4 hours.

Rolls are a basic roll recipe that I make in bulk and freeze. It also doubles as a pizza dough recipe so its great to keep on hand, just let it thaw on the counter and then shape into rolls and bake. Stuffing and corn will follow.

So that is a little look at what our "remember to be Thankful, Thanksgiving" will be tonight. We all have so much to be thankful for, sometimes we forget that when we are so focused on what we want rather than what we have. Time to remedy that. What are you thankful for?

What a difference a day makes

As those of us with chronic illnesses will attest to, a day (or a night) can make all the difference in the world in how we feel. We can be absolutely fine in the evening and awake the next morning barely able to move. The opposite can also be true, we can be miserable one day and the next have seemingly all the energy in the world. It can be utterly frustrating and depressing when you have to cancel on something you were really looking forward to or it can be a wonderful gift to feel like you can get something done that you didn't expect!

I had a high energy day last week and I did a lot of baking and cooking. I try to do this when I'm having a good day so when I don't feel well my family still eats well. It eases my guilt a little and we all know there are plenty of guilty feelings to go around anyway. A friend made a comment about how I am always so ambitious and it made me smile. I really do appreciate the compliments like that because there are so many days when I feel like I don't get anything done or that I don't "carry my own weight" around here. I hoard those compliments in my heart, they make me remember that even through the bad days, tomorrow may just be the best day! This is what I do on my good days, I cook... a lot. I make a lot of meals ahead of time so my family can just take them out of the freezer and I know they're eating something decent.

A friend of mine is an amazing author. Her name is Kathi Lipp , she has written a lot of great books "The Marriage Project" The Me Project" "The get yourself Organized Project" all of them are wonderful but she is also one of my favourite resources for freezer cooking! This woman is a master (Mistress??) at freezer cooking! The "Whats for dinner Solution" book will change your life, especially if you are like me and need to do a lot of cooking at one time. Its so nice to know that I don't have to be in the kitchen all day every day and that, on those days when I just *cant* do it, at least I know I have done something for my family and that is one less burden to carry. I cant thank Kathi enough for the gift of her writing, it has been such a blessing to me and so many others.

This week hasn't been bad, its been a little emotional, ok a lot emotional. We are still waiting to hear about a possible job promotion for my husband (prayers please if you're so inclined!) which would bring about major life changes for us but good ones I think. The kids are all settling back into school, though I have no idea how I all of a sudden have a Senior in High School! I think I may be in denial about that still. I have been dealing with a lot of anxiety lately, which doesnt help the flare ups but overall they have been in check.

I am so grateful for the good days. I'm even grateful for the bad ones, because lets face it, being here is a gift. "Growing older is a gift, a privilege denied to many". So as Gaelic Storm puts it, "Here's to one more day above the roses"!