Happy Thanksgiving Part 2

Thanksgiving Dinner
We all gathered at my aunt's for Thanksgiving dinner tonight. It was a really lovely evening. Walking up to the house she had pumpkins on the walkway and steps, in her garage she had tables set up to eat at covered in rich fall coloured clothes and rugs on the ground with toys for the littles. It all looked beautiful but it was all the faces that I saw when we walked in the door that made the evening so lovely. Our family has grown significantly in recent years, it can be a little nerve racking having the large group and trying to make sure you have enough cutlery, and wondering where everyone will fit in. Amazingly though, it always just works out, they all arrive and everyone finds a place (and a fork) and at the end we always say, "That didn't seem too crowded." It's like Mary Poppins' (I almost wrote Poopings - my kids would have appreciated that) purse, I think because we're meant to be together to share these occasions and be reminded how lucky we are.

There are fourteen grandchildren (or great grandchildren) and thirteen of them are under the age of nine, twelve of them are five and under. I know that my aunt was a little concerned about what they would play with and do and I was kind of looking around our house to see what I could bring for the kids and then I remembered. Thanksgiving dinner use to be at my grandma's house and she had one toy box. In that toy box was a barrel of monkeys, a boxing Kangaroo puppet and a book. We would fight over the three toys for the first couple minutes (mostly with our siblings while we waited for our cousins to arrive) and then we were off. We played hide and seek, conquered our fears by sneaking down into the basement, had races up the front stairs and down the back and who knows what else, but we always had a great time! This is exactly what happened last night, the kids ran around together downstairs and outside. At one point I stood at the kitchen window and watched them all play in the backyard together weaving in and out from one another, building forts, worshipping the oldest, fighting, settling and helping the little ones.

I am so thankful...

Recipe
So for dinner it's a large pot luck. My responsibility was a salad and veggie gravy, my cousin made us a meat alternative loaf which was delicious and had a lot of the same seasoning that you would for turkey. The gravy I made was quite good and here's the recipe below.

1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 celery stick, chopped
1 good glugg of olive oil
1 cup white wine
3 cups veggie stock
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 tsp poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp thyme
flour and a little extra stock for thickening

I cooked the veggies in the olive oil over low heat for 45 minutes until they were really soft (not at all browned). I then added the wine, turned up the heat a little to simmer and let it simmer for 5 minutes. I then added the the stock, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, and seasoning and let this simmer on low together for 10 minutes and then strained out all the veggies. I added a little flour in a little stock and shook it in a jar to disolve and then poured it into the gravy to thicken, bring to a low boil, whisking to get rid of any lumps (mine still had lumps but I'm sure you'll have better luck) until thickened.

For the salad that I brought I really just through together baby greens, baby spinach, some toasted peacan, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, grated carrot, cut up snap peas and chopped up dried fruit (a mix of apples, pears, apricots, peaches and prunes) and then tossed it all with the dressing in this post from my cousin.

I don't really have a proper posting for this week. It was just one of those weeks where I kind of let everything go (although I did get my whole house cleaned at one time, so that was a really exciting 5 minutes). Dave was away for a couple of days, we had leftovers at my parents one night, a cauliflowerr soup that I didn't care for another, a couple repeats and we ordered in once. Next week I'll be back in full swing, I have a lot of recipes in my favorites that I've been wanting to try. I do have a couple things that I want to share with you though...

I've posted a few photos from the 300 that my mom took of us last week as promised. I think the one of the girls walking away together is my favorite, with a five year old and a two year old it really has to be all about the action shots!

Wednesday Harper and I went grocery shopping together and I saw that they had mini oranges, which she loves, and asked her if she wanted to get some. She looked me straight in the eyes and yelled at me, "Ose are ementines!!!!" Later when we got home I'm putting the groceries away and she's pulled herself up to the kitchen table with a clementine (not a mini orange) and I hear, "Don't eat me, Don't eat me!! I ave to eat you ementine you're food. Oh, I didn't know I was food, O.K. I guess you have to eat me. O.K. I going to eat you now."

Finally, one meal suggestion. We had fish tacos Saturday and I prepared the fish a little differently than usual and it was really good. If you remember the Po' Boy Sandwich from this post, I used the same seasoning. I cut the fish in inch size pieces and placed them in a zip lock bag with 4 Tbsp of corn meal and 3 Tbsps of Old Bay seasoning and shook until all coated. Instead of frying it I preheated the oven to 450F, lined a baking sheet with parchment and sprayed it with olive oil, layed out the fish pieces on the sheet and then sprayed the tops. I baked them for about 10 minutes, flipping once. They turned out nice and crispy and perfectly easy for fish tacos.

I hope you have a great week and the sun shines down on you...