Gobble gobble!
Hey guys!
Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday with family and friends.
This year we hosted Thanksgiving again, going on a handful of years now hosting this dinner; which the process is always a lot of fun for me. I look forward to the Wednesday before to prepare the dinner with my mother alone all day. We have a real good time talking while putting everything together, and crafting new things to try…and she cleans the capon! I hope this is a tradition I can partake in until I am old and gray, well, I won’t ever be gray..maybe blue or purple, maybe pink? hah. Plus, I love to cook, and I love the challenges of putting together a large dinner on my own with all the prepping and different cook times getting it on the table at one time.
This year’s Menu:
Appetizers:
- Stuffed mushrooms
- Scallops wrapped in bacon
- Crostini of goat cheese and caramelized zucchini
- Chilled shrimp cocktail*
Cocktails:
- Valeria – Lillet white, elderberry syrup, St Germain and Prosecco floater
- Poinsettia – Prosecco, cranberry vodka and splash of cranberry juice
- Michael- caramel apple martini w cider sugar rim
Dinner:
- Lemon/thyme roasted capon filled with sausage stuffing
- Roasted potato spears
- Pumpkin spiced roasted butternut squash
- Green beans w garlic
- Roasted Asparagus w lemon
- Roasted Brussels sprouts and bacon glazed with maple syrup
- Braised fennel w clementine zest
- Mashed potatoes*
Dessert:
- Squash pie w homemade whipped cream
- Chocolate chip brownies
- Chocolate frosted vanilla cupcakes
- Cream cheese raspberry puff pastry
- Italian cookies*
- Sfingi* (Sicilian type fritter)
- Blueberry pie*
*=brought by family
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The best part of my Thanksgiving wasn’t that my kids behaved, or that my house stayed clean, or that the dinner turned out stellar…it’s that I got to sleep in till 8:30AM. Yes, everyone, my kids gave me a Thanksgiving gift by not running to my bedside early. We are on a roll over here!! Haha. I’m jk jk. Well, sorta, sleeping in is like my favoritest thing ever. Starting your day from bed without being poked at, yelled to, creepily stared at, cried to …is pretty fantastic in my Mommy book. Woohoo give it up to my girls.
FAVORITEST is now a word, yes.
Thanksgiving, all joking aside, turned out to be a real nice day with everyone. From appetizers and cocktails to dinner and desserts, it was smooth going and real delicious …if I can say that about my own food? I have so much to be thankful for this year..so here I am spelling it out.
I am thankful for my health and my families’ health. I am thankful and grateful to have clothes on my back, a nice home with food (and coffee) on the table every day and for our jobs that help us make that happen. I am thankful for my family, my loving and supportive husband, my two smart caring children; for my beautiful parents, wonderful big sisters, caring in-laws and all my friends. And even my cat-baby, Gordon! I am thankful to open my eyes everyday to experience life, and feel that life is good without being extravagant or extra, that the simple things are all I need. I am thankful that I can reflect to appreciate what I have..not what I don’t have and I hope my children see what I see, and how beautiful is this life.
Here are pictures of our day!
Another holiday in the books, guys. I can’t believe how fast 2017 is flying by and I hope 2018 goes a lot …s l o w e r! Let’s all hope!
Happy Thanksgiving and we will talk soon!
xoxoxox
Valeria Out Loud 
You have done an Amezing job putting this together, your family is Beautiful. Am so thankful to keep in touch with your Family after shearing your Growing up years in our old neighborhood
Thank you, Norah! Me too. We were very lucky to have you guys as neighbors, and still now even far away as friends. I am def thankful to have had such a great childhood because of the neighbors/and their kids on Summer Ave. ❤️ 😌