use real butter

Recipe: roasted butternut squash soup simplified

I know a lot of people are traveling today. I hope everyone got to or gets to their destination safely and without incident. We are staying put – the way we like it. Keeps things low key and stress free. I went to the dentist this morning to get fitted for a crown and realized that after an hour, I could feel my gums again. So I think that may be why I suffered such immense pain yesterday because my dentist was jamming the posts down my root canals about 2 hours after she numbed my mouth. *Great* I love it when that happens! Today was a walk in the park by comparison.

While most folks are preparing their turkeys, we have been contemplating the leftovers (there are a lot) as well as eating them. Those potatoes au gratin really do get better with time.

Recipe: dry-brined roast turkey with gravy

Before my parents left for Hawai’i, my mom called me up to find out if I would like her to ship me a Smithfield ham – the uber salty, delicious, country-style ham from my home state of Virginia. I said I’d love to have one and she made a note of it (her thing is to ship hams all over the country to friends and family). I asked if I could get one for Thanksgiving and she said, “No! They come out for Christmas and besides, everybody eats turkey for Thanksgiving.”

Well, not everybody. It’s been a while since we’ve had turkey for Thanksgiving. I always get waylaid when planning the Thanksgiving menu because other mains sound so much better. This year, I decided that no, we wouldn’t be having turkey for Thanksgiving, but yes, I would roast a turkey. Remember that organic bird I picked up at Whole Foods last week?

Recipe: potatoes au gratin

I’ve been thinking about our Thanksgiving menu a lot and not doing much about it, until today. So after watching weather reports and reading up on some climate modeler’s predictions, I made the decision to have an early Thanksgiving dinner à la turkey. I’m still playing around with various components, but one thing is for sure – we are having potatoes.