Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you all stuffed yourselves silly yesterday, in true American fashion.  As you know, since I've been living in Spain I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving on the actual day.  I did, however, wear my cornucopia socks and eat lunch-meat turkey on my toast for breakfast and then again at dinner. ;)  Thursday isn't a holiday here, of course, and so we always have our feast on the weekend.  This year will be the second year in a row that we celebrate with Angelines' family.  I'm not sure they are extremely fond of turkey, but any excuse to get together and eat is always welcome.

This year we'll be cutting back on the food because last year we had far too many leftovers!  I'm making the turkey (obviously) and I'm going to experiment with chorizo stuffing.  This will probably be more popular with my meat-loving nephews.  My mother-in-law is making soup, my sisters-in-law are bringing a veggie dish, some meat and cheese to snack on and a tortilla.  I am also considering making a sweet potato pie to substitute pumpkin, seeing as how cooking down my own squash that isn't pumpkin in the first place is a lot of work!  We shall see.  I think I will probably end up making some mashed potatoes, too, even though I'm sure we'll once again end up with too much food.  Isn't that what Thanksgiving is about: left-overs for weeks?!

This morning I'm going to pick up my turkey.  I'm planning to brine it again.  Last year it was wonderfully moist and flavorful.  I think I will also make the pie crust today (bake the pie tomorrow), make the mashed potatoes, and prepare everything (ie. cube the bread, saute veggies, etc.) for stuffing.  I'm only working with one oven here, so I've got to plan this well if I want everything served "hot". ;)

Today I've also got to put a good dent in my work and class-prep for next week because this weekend will be lost to cooking.  That means I should probably stop writing now and get down to it!  Hope you all had a wonderful, happy, family-filled Thanksgiving.  I'm thankful for the technology that lets me post this to all of you and helps me feel closer to home.