Covid Journal, Day 251: Thankful

And Thanksgiving is over for this year. It was different, for sure--only 4 of us, gathered in the kitchen around a much smaller table than usual. But it was lovely.

Derek and his daughter Haley were here before noon to help Larry cut up a deer, but he'd already pretty much finished, so they worked on splitting wood before coming in to help me with the last phases of dinner prep. No one dressed up this year; it was nice to be so casual. 

What did we have? Turkey, of course, a small one cooked in a roaster instead of in the oven. I'd never used this roaster before, but I'm a convert. It worked very well, and freed up my oven for other things. I tried to use the roaster 2 years ago, but the turkey I had then was way too large at 27 pounds. I'll have to remember to stay with a bird 20 pounds or less if I want to use the roaster.

For sides, we had mashed potatoes instead of wild rice as I'd wanted. Because guess who forgot to buy the rice? Mashed potatoes are everyone else's favorite, anyway. And with giblet gravy, I like them pretty well myself. Cranberry sauce, of course, cooked from berries I had frozen last year, with some orange peel added for flavor.

I decided to try some new veggie recipes this year, and to keep to just two vegetable dishes. Both were wonderful. I wanted something besides sweet potatoes, so opted to use some of our butternut squash. I found a recipe online for roasted butternut squash with maple and cinnamon. Oh. My. Goodness. It was so delicious. If you'd like to try it, here's a link to the recipe. Scroll to the bottom of the page to the recipes--this is one of those sites that yammers on about nothing for paragraph after paragraph before giving you the actual recipe you're looking for. I suppose the purpose of these kinds of posts is to give you more opportunities to see ads and perhaps click on them, so the recipe page gets paid?

The second vegetable side was asparagus. I'd seen a recipe for sauteed asparagus with garlic and parmesan that sounded good, and easy. It certainly lived up to my expectations--easy to make, and so flavorful. Here's the link to the recipe for this one. I can't wait now for the spring crop of asparagus to come on.

So that was dinner, with some mini-croissant rolls, and our own cider to drink. For dessert, apple pie with vanilla ice cream, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and coffee to finish.

What a meal. Delicious, easy to prepare, and cleanup was fast since there were only the 4 of us. All things I'm thankful for. Most importantly, I'm thankful for my family's continuing good health. While several have had the virus, none has been seriously ill so far. Everyone has been able to keep their jobs, even if they did, in some cases, have to work from home. We are blessed with plenty. And now, with a new administration coming into power in the new year, we have, I hope, the possibility of a return to civility in government. Yes, much to be thankful for in this strange year of 2020.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.