Thursday, December 2, 2010

Special Post Thursday - Thanksgiving Dinner and Birthday Dinner

Working on this post a bit early because:
1) I will be shopping with my sister tonight to take advantage of some good deals at Old Navy.
2) Work WAS going well until the duece hit the fan.  So I need a bit of distraction in order to calm myself down, focus, and get back into my groove.

So today, I give you our Thanksgiving Dinner!  We hosted for both families.  This was the first time either of us has cooked a full on Thanksgiving meal for the whole family.  Needless to say, I was quite nervous since my dad and my in laws are very good cooks.  In a way, this was sort of my right of passage into adulthood - cooking for the family. 

On the menu was:
Deviled Eggs - My own recipe!
Basically I removed the yolk from the eggs and in a seperate bowl added mustard, seasonings, horseradish, and mayo to taste.  Sprinkled paprika for garnish.

Salad


Stuffing - This turned out to be a big hit at dinner!  I got the recipe from SparkPeopleSince the Turkey highjacked the oven, I made the stuffing in the crockpot on low for 2.5 hours.  (Tip:  Definitely add all 2.5 cups of chicken broth)

Green Beans with Bacon Vinaigrette (Recipe from Real Simple) 
This was one of the last things I made and wasn't quite as successful as I thought it would be.  However, the green beans were crisp and tasty.  The vinaigrette . . not so much.  Loved the hints of bacon though!

Cornbread Sweetcake
You're supposed to scoop this up from the pan, but I decided to turn them into Cornbread balls.  I liked it.  I think next time, I would use a pie plate or maybe the ramkins.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Muffins!  (Recipe from Good Housekeeping)
These were also a hit with the group!  My sister made these for me while I went for my run.

And of course, the MAIN EVENT!

Turkey!  This was Marcin's first time Marcin made a turkey. 

All together:
Not a bad spread, if I do say so myself!

One of the best part of this dinner:

Got to break out the fine china!


Marcin carving the turkey!

All in all a great dinner.  So great that Marcin asked a repeat of some of the dishes for his 30th Birthday Dinner!

He wanted . . .

Stuffing - This time I made it in the oven and it was equally delicious!


Pumpkin Cinnamon Loaf
I wanted to make this into a loaf instead of muffins for fun (TIP:  If you are making this as a loaf, put it in the oven at 400 degrees for 50 minutes)
For the main course, Marcin wanted Tuna Steak Salad

This is from my South Beach Cookbook

It's a really easy recipe.  Wash and spin some salad greens and chick peas.  I marinated two small tuna steaks in lemon juice, coarse grain mustard, salt, and pepper for about half hour.  Then I cook the steaks in a pan with 2 tablespoons of oil for 1.5 minutes on each side (that is if you like medium rare, if you want it a little bit more well done - 2 minutes on each side).

Marcin said that it was the best birthday dinner ever!  I guess I set the bar for myself!  That's ok, I like the challenge!

Happy Thursday Folks.  I hope you didn't have any fires at work that you had to put out like I did!

1 comments:

Blubeari said...

Seriously. Every time you put food on here I WANT IT. :-) Hope things calm down at work.