Thanksgiving 2011

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

For our Thanksgiving this year we decided to really make it a feast and eat in courses.

Also, my brother in law's family has an annual tradition of an Italian feast on New Years day.  We had talked about joining them this year, but they are going to be gone, so we incorporated some of the Italian feast into Thanksgiving.

Around 10:30 am we started off with appetizers: deviled eggs, crackers and cheese, veggie platter, apples and marshmallow/yogurt dipping sauce and spanakopita.

Later we officially started the feast with a cranberry juice toast and 

Cappiletti soup with rolls.  

The Cappiletti is homemade stuffed pasta, shaped like a little cap, hence the name.

A couple of hours later, we had the Lasagna course.  

Also, homemade by my brother in law.  

We next came the pumpkin pie palette cleanser.

After our tummies had settled a bit, we moved on to the veggie course with baked sweet potatoes.  It turns out if you wrap them in foil then bake them, they are delicious!  We also had succotash and green bean almondine.   

It was all delicious.  

Next came the main course of turkey, 

stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry jelly.

Last of all was the Pie course.  We had 14 1/2 pies. 2 lemon meringue, 1 pumpkin chiffon, 1 cherry, 1 large apple, 2 chocolate chess, 2 pumpkin spice, 1 large pumpkin, 1 chocolate cream, 1 vanilla pudding, 1 old fashioned cream, 1 strawberry, and 1/2 a pecan pie.  

It was great having the courses.  None of the food got lost in the crowd, you could really savor all of it.  We did end up eating all day long, but we took breaks and played games,

 and there were enough adults that we took turns in the kitchen.  

It was a wonderful day of food, family and fun.

And a good time to reflect on all that we are blessed with.  

Happy Giving Thanks, we are.