So I never did get around to posting those thanksgiving pictures, and I kinda sorta didn’t cook anything. For a whole week.
Crazy, I know!
But I feel like I deserved it, after completely rocking the socks off of thanksgiving dinner! See exhibit A:

Here is the spinach and artichoke dip* I made in my crock pot, and the shrimp cocktail I poured into a bowl. Everyone oohed and aahed when I brought it out, but all I did was defrost the shrimp and hook the little buggers over the edge of the bowl. Not a culinary masterpiece.
I also made my grandmother’s curry dip and it was good! I do not like jicama though, it had a weird flavor I couldn’t get over. But remind me to post that recipe in the future, it would be great to whip up before a party 🙂
*In cleaning up the kitchen, we somehow forgot to refrigerate the spinach artichoke dip, and as a result it sat out on the table all night. It did not smell great the next day. I would recommend against this.

My mother’s turkey! Came out pretty nice, didn’t it? I still think it was too small though…

Side dishes on the sideboard! Starting from the far left we got cranberry sauce (from a can), bottom left is the homemade stuffing, then the cranberry sauce (homemade: Thanks Sugarcrafter!), my aunt’s sweet potato souffle, cauliflower mashed potatoes, lemon roasted green beans with almonds, and a salad.
Not pictured was the gravy I made from scratch. I even simmered the giblets for hours, chopped those up and added them to the stock!
Everyone was so impressed with how much I cooked, and how far I’ve come in the past six months. And I have to say I’m thankful for my family for being so supportive and understanding that weekend, leaving me alone when I was stressed, and doing most of the dishes 🙂
*****
So now that I’ve recovered from Thanksgiving, it’s back into the kitchen I go. Instead of picking a country or a technique for this week, I thought I’d try a few recipes from a cookbook I just got on my Kindle Fire (Merry Christmas to me!). I also splurged and bought myself the Iphone 4s (Happy Chanukah to me!).
The cookbook is called 100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know, by Cindi Leive. It’s funny AND full of awesome recipes that I can’t wait to try. And next week I’ll go back to being super adventurous and crazy (I can’t decide between German food and Indian…any suggestions?), and I’ll even start throwing in some favorite holiday recipes for you to try!
I missed you, and I’m glad to be back! Happy December!!!