This is the Super Bowl of a cook’s world.  I love this holiday and I certainly don’t want to skip over it in a rush to get to Christmas!  Since Matt and I began developing our love of cooking almost 10 years ago, we have looked forward to Thanksgiving a little more each year.  I think, in a way, we are trying to create our own family traditions this year, with a little family of our own.  We realized with a hint of despair the other day that we may not get to host our own family Thanksgiving until our children are in college!  So we decided that along with trying out new recipes each year and saving some old favorites, we’d have our own Thanksgiving at our home, before heading out of town to spend time with our extended families.

This was our Pre-Thanksgiving!  I printed off each recipe and kept the stack on our counter to refer to as I did my prep.  I couldn’t sleep Monday morning, so I got up around 5 and started chopping leeks, mushrooms and Brussels sprouts.  We had a few friends over who each brought an amazing pie and some blue ribbon biscuits from our friend, Rod, who still won’t share that recipe, almost 20 years later.  🙂 I didn’t get pictures of everything, nor was I trying to do a post on any one particular recipe.  I just took some pics that I could and let the rest go – this was about having a great time with friends and not about styling a plate of food. However, I did get links to the recipes for everything we did.  Everything turned out really fantastic – loved the Brussels Sprouts and the Cheesy Squash Cassrole and that cocktail made everything just a little more sparkly. 😉

Brussels Sprouts with Blue Cheese and Bacon

Cranberry Orange Relish

Twice Baked Pimento Cheese Potatoes

The cocktail of the evening that made EVERYONE happy – Santa’s Little Helper.  This will be making a repeat appearance.
Turkey Porcetta

Dishes I made but failed to get a photo of:
Mushroom and Bacon Stuffing
Cheesy Squash Casserole

Again, everything was wonderful and we had a great time with our friends!  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone – have safe travels and we’ll see you back here next week with a report on all the goodies we make at my parents’ house in New Mexico.  There’s a S’mores pie I’ve been wanting to create…