a thanksgiving recap

Happy holidays! Here’s my list of what made me so thankful for Thanksgiving 2009:

• learning how to stuff my first turkey with my mom Thursday AM
• getting a great elliptical workout before the big meal!
• getting together with my family for food and dominoes (although I completely lost by having the highest score!)
• making two great dishes for the meal!

When I was a smarter blogger, I would have remembered to take more pictures. However, I was helping my mom & dad with the last minute food work, then it was time to eat, and it all looked too delicious to wait anymore!

For my part of the meal, I was assigned the pasta dish and a veggie dish. I found Michael Symon’s Mac and Cheese with Roasted Chicken, Goat Cheese and Rosemary recipe on Michael Ruhlman’s blog last month after I tasted the dish at a donor event I planned in October. This mac and cheese is SO EASY TO MAKE and is really incredible.  However, once you take a look at the ingredients, you’ll see why it’s not the healthiest choice for every day meals. But for a special occasion, definitely!  Here are the changes I made to the ingredients list:

• Instead of 1 quart cream, I used one pint of cream and one pint of whole milk
• I subbed two packages (5 oz each) of garlic & herb Boursin cheese for the 8 ounces goat cheese (was making sure to not scare off  my husband and dad by using a much less “scary” cheese!)
• I omitted the 2 cups shredded roasted chicken (HELLO there was a 21 pound turkey already there!)

While the recipe doesn’t call for it to go in the oven, we put our serving platter in the oven to keep it warm. It was a big hit! It also tastes pretty fantastic cold out of the fridge when you need a snack – not that I’m talking from experience!

To balance out the ridiculousness of cream/milk/cheese combo, I found this great recipe for Green Beans with Shallots and Almonds on Whole Foods’ website.

pic from WF's website, but mine looked exactly the same!

I tripled the recipe (just because I bought two huge bags of frozen beans at TJ’s that were 1 pound, 8 oz each) and used dried herbs instead of fresh. It was a great alternative to green bean casserole. Aunt Kathy said she really enjoyed it and she wasn’t a “green bean person”. I’ll take it!

It was a great holiday with my family. By the end of the night, I offered to host Christmas! I’m sure I’ll be regretting it on December 24th! Happy Thanksgiving weekend everyone!