Thanksgiving is a beautiful holiday for someone who loves food. There’s a lot to be thankful for throughout the year, of course, I enjoy spending time with my family, of course. But thanksgiving is a great example of how strongly food can bring nostalgia while also evolving just slightly year-to-year. I love when people make little tweaks to the recipes they bring every year, I love when kids grow up and discover their signature dish to bring, I love when new members are added to the family and they bring something to your table that they grew up with on theirs.
This year was a little chaotic. It was my first year working full time, my first year with a year-round apartment located in the same area as my parents (rather than a 9-month college apartment), and it was my first year with a lil puppy. We had Thanksgiving dinner a weekend early because I’ll be working on actual Thanksgiving. There were a few hiccups in our afternoon due to my oven deciding to not work, my puppy getting messy, and things being forgotten at the store. I didn’t get to take as many pictures of the food as I wanted, because when we got there everyone (including me) was ready to dig right into it.
Here’s my plate, full of my staples for the actual meal (don’t worry, you know dessert is coming). Clockwise from the top we have turkey and mashed potatoes with veggie gravy, seven layer salad, a biscuit, stuffing, green beans and corn casserole.
The turkey this year was grilled and delicious. Mashed potatoes I don’t really love, but I always get them at Thanksgiving (and get them on my fork the same time as turkey, so every bite has both). The seven layer salad is what my boyfriend Jon has contributed to our family Thanksgiving table for a second year now. This is what I was talking about up above! It was a favorite of his growing up and now he shares it with us (and it’s even tastier than it looks). Next is a homemade biscuit, of course, and stuffing, which is my favorite. I usually get a bigger pile of stuffing than of anything else. As you can tell, I forgot to take a picture of my plate until I had already taken a few bites off of it. Oops, watcha gonna do. Green beans were cooked with onions and were tasty as always, and I literally can not imagine Thanksgiving without my mama’s corn casserole.
Some participants of the evening said we had “too many desserts,” which I took as a challenge. I tried everything, obviously. And I told my mom, “if we have leftover dessert, I WILL take care of it.” Top right is a chocolate cake with pumpkin buttercream and chocolate ganache, which was new and also incredible. I had my leftover slice today and *chef’s kiss.* We brought over cute lil cookies, mostly because they were cute. On the left is pecan pie brownies, which were very sticky and EXTREMELY GOOD.
Bottom right of the group pic is my pie! Here’s a close-up. She’s stunning. This is a pumpkin butterscotch blondie pie from a Food Network Magazine recipe. I made it last year and I will continue to make it for the foreseeable future because I love it. You’re seeing the white chocolate pumpkin ganache on top, and chopped white chocolate and butterscotch chips which I very poorly sprinkled over the top. It’s yummy and you should google it and make it. Also, I baked this in the toaster oven because my oven decided to just like not get hot. It actually worked out just fine.
Since I didn’t take as many food pictures as I wanted, I will include pictures of my puppy hanging out because HE had an exceptionally great day. He got to try pumpkin, and literally flipped out. I think I heard him say “this is the best thing I’ve ever had in my life.” He also got some bacon and some (plain, white, unseasoned, roasted) turkey. Happy boy.
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