After the food coma

Well, Thanksgiving is over. whew. Can you hear it? No? That's because what you're hearing is a mostly quiet house with a mostly quiet kitchen.

We hosted our first Thanksgiving in our new home. I think it went really well. . I consider it a full Thanksgiving meal cooked even though I didn't do the turkey here. I did buy the turkey, thaw it, clean it out, remove its little "done popper thing" and inject it, and then finally sprinkled it with a sodium free cajun rub. (did you know cajun could be sodium free? I was not aware) I didn't cook the turkey, though. An acquaintance of mine from work offered her husband's turkey frying skills, and I happily took her up on it. My mother in law, Nancy, brought the wine, fruit salad, and rolls. This worked out really well, because these would be the details I think I would normally forget. We also had gravy from the Soup Peddler because when one fries a turkey, there aren't pan juices to be turned into gravy. . . that being said, I would not use Soup Peddler's gravy again, because it was not entirely awesome. (And that pains me to say because I love the Soup Peddler). . I made cornbread stuffing (mom's recipe), mashed potatoes with goat cheese and chives (Cooking Light), baked spinach with Gruyere (Real Simple - and real dense), cranberry sauce (the recipe is on the back of the bag of berries), sweet potato casserole with the praline topping, pecan pie (my recipe) and pumpkin pie. . and I am probably forgetting something.

We ate quickly and all that work was for a meal that lasted at tops, thirty minutes. . . but at least we are enjoying the leftovers. I feel actually a lot more relaxed than I expected to feel at this time. . .

I found time to knit on and off this weekend, but I am looking forward now to really throwing myself into the knitting. Because of the election and A Christmas Affair (learn more at http://www.jlaustin.org ) I just haven't had time to sit still. I did read during this time because every night I would need a few minutes to slow down and turn off my brain. (I thank Allison and my mom for providing the reading list sitting under my side of the bed.)

Today I put away the Thanksgiving and autumn decorations and began dragging out the Christmas items. I am excited to decorate in this house for the holidays because when we bought the house, one of my thoughts was that it would look pretty decorated for the holidays. . I will be glad to see that happen. I will take pictures once things are up - it will be another week, though, because we won't be getting a tree until the end of next weekend!