Happy Thanksgiving! The appetizers look great!

Ours is not so fancy.......turkey, dressing , mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, broccolli, sweet potatoes. Our table grew from 4 to 9 when DH invited the neighbor family! They are bringing dessert.

I am thankful for those very neighbors, for a beautiful spot on the earth to live, and the opportunity to cook in a kitchen that works, and all the lovely GW family!!

Nancy

Happy Thanksgiving! That looks wonderful - and your kitty pics are always endearing. Is she wanting to get first dibs on the food?

I lucked out - only have to bring salad today and mashed potatoes tomorrow, nothing really picture worthy. ;) MIL makes a mean sausage mushroom stuffing and that is what I am looking forward to. On my side I love my Mom's (grandma's recipe) cranberry relish which I will be enjoying tomorrow. Delish!

Well since you knocked out the generic family...I am thankful for my health and the general good health of my family, that we are able to live fully. Thankful for the blessings that we see each day in the seasons that change (we get all 4 of them in my parts). Thankful for my dog that keeps me company on my early morning walks and jogs - she is a great accountability partner. Thankful for my friends and my church family as well.

Good to see you are putting that beautiful kitchen to work! The end products looks delish. I am grateful for good health and my son who makes me laugh every day, and that I will have a beautiful new kitchen, that is functional, to prepare holiday feasts at this time next year!

I just pulled the last tray of cheese straws from the oven, which means I can head to my sister's house. DH is working today.

I'm thankful for our jobs, the meat CSA I found recently, and our pets! Also thankful that Sandy did not hit my area much at all - but thinking of the people who lost their homes or even neighborhoods due to her.

I am boiling bagels !! We will start the day right. More pics later after DD gets here to help. I made 3 Sourdough Boules and a dozen Ciabatta rolls and put 16 bagels together yesterday, they have been in the fridge overnight .DH made 16 buttermilk dinner rolls..I didn't think to get pics since I have showed them so many times.

why I love my Frigidaire Twins --SO much room !

bagels boiling :

Yum !!

{{!gwi}}

More later :)

Thank you Breezy and may everyone have a wonderful day and be as thankful as I am for my family and home and life that I lead. c

Can you get any better than homemade bagels with a fire crackling in the background???? That is awesome trailrunner!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!! I can't wait to see all the beautiful pictures! I am most thankful for my family, I have 3 beautiful children, that are healthy- that's all I could ask for! Hope everyone enjoys their day!

geez, sorry Breezy, I didn't see this thread and I started another. ugh.

I'm using the probe in my Miele oven today to roast the turkey. I've also been giving the steamer a workout. I love using it to steam veggies before putting them in the oven to roast them.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my GW friends!

Bee

happy thanks giving back...

my chairs are like yours

Trail, where were you when I needed you this morning? In Pittsburgh visiting my daughter and we had a bagel this morning at the Dunkin Donuts. We are used to NY bagels and these were not up to par!
Have a relaxing visit and will be going out tonight for dinner. A really nice change from cooking every year!
All the best to this great community:)

Breezy and trail- zowie!
Happy Thanksgiving to all.

ellen, sorry :) You will have to stop in any morning and I will toast one up for you and we can chat over our coffee and bagels !!

thank you a2!! I hope all of you are having a wonderful day. I am snapping pics as I go about my prep. We don't eat till evening so nothing much going on till later. Had lunch by the pool...lovely out here. c

That stilton looks divine! I can almost taste it.

Breezy, my old roommate and I had a kitty that looked just like yours. He passed away about a year ago at age 19. I loved his gold eyes so much, my own grey & white kitty has gold eyes, too.

Here is the table, DH making salad, and little kitty waiting patiently for his turkey. He is 15, and he loves turkey. We are so thrilled he is with us for another year.

Happy Thanksgiving! I have the same chairs, too :)

That's so funny, the same chairs with similar occupants!

Ironically, our chairs are referred to as the Heywood-Wakefield "dogbone" chairs.

Hope all are having a wonderful holiday. Thought of everyone while I was dicing, slicing, chopping and roasting. I'm sure many were doing the same. I am blessed to have this great kitchen..it performed beautifully. Had a sit-down dinner for 13 and all went well.
Happy Thanksgiving GWers.

Love the chairs and the fur balls !!

I made a slide show..too many pics :) DD was my main helper. DH made the dinner rolls and stir fried the brussel sprouts. He also washed ALL the dishes..such as they were. We clean as we go so only the plates and serving dishes. DD put up the leftovers. I hope everyone had a great day.

one teaser pic !

Here is a link that might be useful: Thanksgiving 2012

Happy Thankgiving everyone!!

The dinner has been eaten, the kitchen is cleaned and everything put away. Just waiting for the apple pie to cool.
Hopefully, this time next year I will be cooking in my new kitchen. Looking so forward to that !

You guys!! I can't believe everyone has the same chairs!! that is amazing !!!

And all those beautiful felines...oh my, so adorable!!

Blessings to everyone once again from Orange County, Ca.
Where are y'all?

>Go_figure: me, too. Laguna Beach. Howdy neighbor!

What a great thread! What could be better than the theme of wonderful food and kitties?

From Montana today:

In keeping with the cats-in-chairs theme, I will contribute this photo from Thanksgiving a few years ago. It was too cold to spend much time outside, so we set them up for a happy view.

Lastly, a cat photo from today:

I hope everyone enjoyed something special today!

Well the kitchen is back to normal now after its first Thanksgiving. Love how much more countertop area I have and how I don't get trapped in my previous small u- shape. Made two 20lb turkeys. Served dinner to 20 people including my nephews and his 4 orphaned college buddies in town for a basket tournament. It was fun.

Here is the the turkey that was convection roasted using the built in probe in my GE Profile. Didn't baste it once. And look house nice and golden brown it is.
{{!gwi}}

This one was cooked on the weber grill using indirect method.
{{!gwi}}

My Advantium worked great for making vegetariam lasagna. My slow cooker was used for garlic mashed potatoes (cooked red potatoes with garlic in there on high for 4-1/2 hours without adding any water. Mashed them up and added some cream cheese with chives) turned out great.

The best part of the day and the thing I am thankful for is my DD and her husband announcing that my DH and I will be first time grandparents in June.

Hi dretutz ! I am a stone throw away in Irvine!! So nice to have someone close by!
trails & Karin! I can taste those pies!!
badger gal, 2 turkeys !! Awesome!!

Blessings to all !!

Great pics !! I didn't get one of our Meatball..all 18 1/2 # of kitty in front of the fireplace. Love that greenhouse ...

Congratulations Badgergal ! Our 1st and only grandson was 1 yr old on Nov 1 so this time last year we were up there for Thanksgiving. We are home here in AL this year. Wonderful thread and look forward to more pics. c

I was grumbling late last night that no-one (meaning DH) thought to take any pictures and it was way too chaotic for me to do so during the final minutes. Other than that... perfect day, possibly best tasting and looking turkey ever, and everything was hot when we sat down. Here's the one food picture I took while assembling the apple pie.

P.S. Congrats badgergal!

We did Thanksgiving at DB as they have a new puppy. I failed to take pictures of the scrumptious turkey(I still made the turkey and it looked just like Badgergal's!), SIL siide dishes, and niece makes awesome apple pies. SIL is famous for Booze pie which is a family recipe for a cognac laced pumpkin pie.
DB kept sticking his nose in the kitchen with his 2 cents and finally, I told him that next year the boys would make dinner. My DH says unfair as he steered clear...

Can't wait to check out Trails slide show.

Badger- congratulations on a successful first tday and on your news!

Karin- great pie and garden!

Breezy- way to recover

GScience, trail, bee and others- thanks for sharing.

From iPhone with usual cryptic text errors!

Badgergal - wow, congratulations! That is wonderful news for all! How fun to have the announcement on Thanksgiving. Just imagine how hard it was for your daughter to hold onto that news until just the right moment!

OldBat - Even if you only got one photo, it's a beautiful one with the pie bathed in sunlight. I am envious of how smooth and even your pie crusts are. Mine get all ragged at the edges when I roll it out. Maybe I need a marble countertop? ;)

The photos are great - keep them coming please!

Now I am off to have some pie for breakfast....

Great pics! I was lucky in that MIL was taking pics with my phone while we prepped. She had foot surgery about a month ago, and she is only weight bearing about a week, so, unfortunately, she couldn't help set up much. I really missed her help because she normally brings sweet potatoes and salad, so those are two extra things we had to make here. Plus, DH had to pick her up, so that was over an hour I didn't have his help.

Wow, Badger, two 20-lb turkeys! How did you do the turkey on the Weber grill? Do you use gas or kettle/charcoal? Does it have to be partially cooked indoors first?

Back from Black Friday shopping. I debated about going, but I got to the mall about 7 a.m. and it was empty! It was picking up when I left after 10:30. The one salesperson said people were there at midnight.

Ahh, after seeing the cats in chairs, I think I need to purchase a special chair for my kitty. (Of course, she thinks ALL the chairs and other furniture in our house belongs to her alone.) Two of our three cats have died in the past few months, so I'm spoiling the one that is left even more.

gsciencechick- We cooked that one turkey on a Weber charcoal grill. No need to precook the turkey in the house. You use the indirect method which has the coal on the sides. Get the coals going good ( like preheating the oven) and put the bird in a foil pan and set the pan in the middle of the grate. You should have one of those hinged grates so you can flip up the sides and add more charcoal as it cooks. You need to add 10-15 pieces of charcoal every hour to keep the temperature from dropping. We like to add a few hickory smoke wood chips to the charcoal for a mild smoke flavor.
It took about 4 hours to cook our 20 lb. stuffed bird. We've been making one on the grill for several years no matter what the weather is like outside. We were lucky this year because it was in the 64 degrees here yesterday instead of 30 degrees like it is today.
You really should try grilling a turkey sometime. It's easy and tastes great.

sail-away...our meatball is the same way...when you weigh 18 #,,,he lost a needed 1 1/2 # while we were gone...all chairs are your chairs ! he simply pushes me out !!

badger...my Dad and DB did indirect on the grill starting in the 60's. We had a thorough bred horse farm in Covington LA and they used to use the grill to do legs of lamb...a whole goat...eye of round...you name it. Haven't see it done in years. We may need to try this ...thanks for the details and the pics ! c

Wow, thanks, Badger, we will have to try it. The weather is mild here in the Carolinas at TG and even Christmas. DH usually grills a whole beef tenderloin on the indirect heat on Christmas Eve. For anyone who's interested, to do the tenderloin, it's around 20-25 min on the direct portion of the grill over the coals(flipping half way through) and then about the same time on the indirect. No problem having the coals last that long.

I love seeing everyone's pics!

Trailrunner--I always enjoy seeing all your bread product pics. I'm still not sure I'll ever get round to trying bagels myself, but love knowing *you* do it!

Badger--Congrats on the upcoming baby! Should we start calling you Grandbadger? ;) Wish I'd snapped a pic of our turkey cooked with the probe in my Wolf. Yours look amazing!

Engineerchic--Jealous of the meat CSA. We have a veg/fruit share for summer and early fall, but never heard of a meat version. Cool!

Bee--no worries! Happy (late) Thanksgiving.

Donaleen, Bikerchic, Gsciencechick, and Karin--kitties in chairs! I love it!

Go_figure--I'm in the rainy PNW, although the rain thankfully hid from us on Thursday.

Karin--I spent a couple of years in Montana as a child, and went back regularly to visit family friends until about a decade ago. It's such stunning country. I'm amazed by the rolling yet wide open hills and beauty every time I'm there. We hope to drive the kids to Yellowstone in a couple of years.

Oldbat--that's the most beautiful pie inside I've ever seen! I agree that my dough edges never look that good at that stage. Do you have a special trick?

A2--booze pie? I'm in!

Sail Away--I'm sorry abou the loss of your little kitties. I agree about spoiling the one you have left. I did the same last year.

First up for our meal was Curried Butternut Squash Bisque. I think I liked mine. ;)

Second course was fall greens with persimmon, toasted hazelnuts, and vinaigrette made with a tangerine reduction and chocolate balsamic vinegar. Schnikees, it was a tasty dressing!

I don't have any Thanksgiving food pics, HOWEVER, what I did get was a very clear idea of the final tweaks to my layout. This year, instead of being frustrated with my poor layout, I paid attention to what didn't work and why. Totally answered a few remaining questions.

So, I'm thankful for that.

Deedles--that's an AWESOME thing for which to be thankful! Congratulations! Next year, we'll be seeing food pics from your finished kitchen. ;)

Oh, Breezy... I hope so! Keep sending 'finished kitchen' energy my way!

You know, another thing I'm thankful for is Ms. Bellajourney. She and I have been working together on my layout and she's is using her computer program skills to make it 'real'. I can't tell you how helpful this has been.

congratulations deedles on your progress !!

breezy...YUM !!

check out the lard pics :) c

deedles ! I am so happy for you. I can really understand the total frustration that planning the lay-out brings on. I have been experiencing it for over a year! I look forward to your posts as you move ahead. Best of everything !

I haven't been on here in a long time - since I redid the kitchen in my prior house, although I do regularly stop by to lurk.

Here is a pic of Apple Pie baked in the kitchen of our new house - been here about a year. We didn't host Thanksgiving this year but I baked apple pies.

We are thankful that we survived Sandy unscathed and found some new friends in our neighbors as a result. We pray for those who were not as fortunate.

And on the Cats on Chairs theme - here is an older picture of my Rocky and Shelly from a few years back in my old, old kitchen.

Regarding pie crust - I cheated; that was 2 Pillsbury ones cobbled together. Pie crust is my nemesis, I will tackle 5-6 times a year but am never thrilled. I wouldn't use this for upper layer of an apple pie again, it was too overdone. It was fine for the pumpkin pie though.

Breezy- please post recipe for the chocolate balsamic vinegar dressing. It sounds WONDERFUL!

TR--I briefly saw the lard yesterday and am intrigued. I'll go read and look again.

Teresa--Your pie has a uniquely beautiful crust. Wow! Your kitties are sweet. What breed are they? They look like Mexican hairless cats only...well...with hair! ;)

Oldbat--thanks for the confession! Now I don't feel so inadequate. I always make my pastry crusts, but never thought I could achieve the uniform thickness of your pic. Your secret is safe with me. :)

Here's the recipe for the vinaigrette. I had some dark chocolate balsamic from a cute, new little hole in the wall oil and vinegar shop. I never thought I'd be able to buy such specialty flavored olive oils and balsamics here in my small town. It's a real treat! I also bought an organic Persian lime olive oil at the same time, which combines well with the chocolate balsamic to a great, simple vinaigrette also. I'm almost afraid to go back to the store for fear of all the new flavors I'm going to HAVE to buy! Peach balsamic?!? To die for!

3/4 cup fresh tangerine juice
1 tablespoon tangerine zest
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons hazelnut oil or walnut oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (I used the dark chocolate balsamic this time)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Freshly ground pepper

Boil tangerine juice and zest until reduced to 1/4 cup, anywhere from 5-8 minutes. Whisk in remaining ingredients.

teresa glad to see you ! Gorgeous pie !! Glad you got through the storm in good condition. Do you have pics of current kitchen to post ????

haha,,old bat I am going to tell ! :)

breezy that sounds so yum. I have never heard of all the flavors you mention. Will have to do some investigating. c

Oldbat: I have a pie crust recipe for you that WILL NOT FAIL. It is the flakiest most easiest most awesome-est. I promise. VODKA. That's the secret. Cold Vodka.

I was working with some einkorn flour to make piecrusts this year (note to self: don't experiment on T-day pies) and I used this recipe and worked it TO DEATH. Added flour on top of flour to be able to roll it. Any run of the mill crust would have been like drywall but this... flaky, delicate, crispy edges... wonderful.

Apparently as the vodka evaporates (leaving no trace of vodka-ey flavor) while the pie bakes it leaves air pockets behind. Like the cold butter or lard does in the mainstream recipes. So, no matter how much you work it and no matter if your butter or lard gets too worked in, that good old vodka is in there to insure a perfect result. And it does.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vodka pie crust recipe

Thanks deedles, I will try (and hopefully not sample too much in the process, LOVE stoli and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, yum, as in.... Oh look, it's almost 5 o'clock, time to make the pie crusts... :) )

Breezy, thank you for the recipe! I will try it out. Both kids are used to salads with dinner and DS really likes balsamic vinegar (makes me buy buffalo mozz and slices it and then flavors with BV, salt,olive oil and basil. Your recipe sounds irresistable.

trailrunner - ack!! I'll go straight from now on, promise!

Oldbat--Stoli with fresh grapefruit sounds yummy! I'm enjoying a warm cup of that spicy mulled cider I made for T'day with a glug of rum. What? It's not 5:00 pm here, but I know it is for some of you! Besides, DD is down for her nap; DH and DS are outside installing holiday lights; and I've got a quiet house to myself. Heaven! I'm taking advantage by cooking up a double batch of chunky tomato and meat sauce for lasagne. A pan for tonight, and one to freeze. Plus, some herb and garlic bread to go along. Hey, I just realized I have everything to make another salad using the tangerine-chocolate vinaigrette. I should have mentioned that the initial recipe came from epicurious.com before I modified it.

Your DS sounds very adventuresome just like mine. Poor kid never grew up on standard fare like PB sandwiches so now I have trouble coming up with lunches for him to take to school. He's too used to warmed up leftovers, fresh saut�ed zucchini, stir fried broccoli, etc for lunch. Can't do that now that he's in school all day!

Deedles--I've seen that recipe some other place and ignored it for my standard ATK recipe. The reviews are so good on the vodka crust that I'm going to give it a try next time. I almost hate to use vodka as its so expensive now that my state privatized liquor sales, but I'll go for it since I bought some gonzo bottles of vodka out of state to make vanilla extract for gifts this year and have some leftover. It's either that or drink the stuff, right? ;)

Oldbat: Pillsbury? Gasp! :) Well, now I feel better that my pie crusts always look like a map of Antarctica. And I'm relieved that I don't need a marble countertop to get those perfect results. ;)

Thank you Deedles for the vodka recipe. I too have always heard good things about that method, and I like Cook's Illustrated recipes. I have it bookmarked for use on a pumpkin pie. (DH favors Costco pumpkin pie over my version, so I am determined to make one that he falls for.)

Teresa - what beautiful cats! Abssynians?

No problem. Be interested in how much you love it once you try it.

I did my PP with coconut milk instead of evaporated milk. Added a subtle niceness, I think.

Hi all. Thanks for the warm welcome back.

I got the idea for the Pie crust from a very old cookbook. After you make the crust, you cut it into 8 slices (like a pie) and then cut out the triangles to make it look like a flower. You use the cut triangles around the outside crust for decoration. Then I brush on some egg and sugar before baking. It always gets great reviews. I've done this with pillsbury (gasp) and with homemade crusts. Both come out amazying.

The cats are Abyssinians (a Blue and a Fawn) although I lost the Blue to my ex husband in the divorce.

I will post some pics of the kitchen in the new house. It in no way measures up to my TKO kitchen but I'm dealing. It is twice the size though. We've made some improvements to spruce it up but could use some ideas on how I can make it my own. I can't afford to re-do it and it is fairly nice.