I hope everyone had a delicious Thanksgiving! I have finally recovered enough from my food coma to share my Thanksgiving experience with you. Every year, Thanksgiving dinner is prepared by a joint effort group from my mom, my sister and I. This year was no different. I even spent the night on Wednesday so I didn't have to drive to my mom's early in the morning. The day always starts with a pot of coffee (I am useless without coffee) and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. While, I don't have the time to watch the whole parade like I did when I was younger, I still enjoy catching snippets of it in the background. It just doesn't feel like Thanksgiving without it on! The turkey is the first on the agenda. It's always huge, around 20 lbs, even if we aren't having any guest over. Why? Because of the leftovers! This way no one has to cook over the long weekend. I remember when I was a kid, we had Thanksgiving at my Nani and Nana's (my maternal grandparents) house. However, my Mom and Dad would still cook a Turkey at our house. Because my family was so big, my grandparents didn't have a ton of leftovers. By making our own turkey, we had leftovers waiting for us. Like most families, we have our must have dishes and we each have our specialties. My mother always makes the turkey, stuffing (yes, we stuff our bird), collard greens and arroz con gandules (a Puerto Rican rice and piegon pea dish). My sister always makes the macaroni & cheese and the potato salad. I am in charge of the desserts (usually Dutch Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie), the broccoli, rice & cheese casserole, sweet potatoes and homemade rolls. However, this year, I had three new requests. First, my brother requested a pumpkin cheesecake. Second, Nev (my boyfriend/tastetester) suggested I make some sort of cookie with cranberries. Lastly, my mom wanted to try something different for the sweet potatoes. Since my brother requested a pumpkin cheesecake, I did some research and settled on Annie's Eats Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake. The cheesecake was so light and so easy to make. It got rave reviews by my family-even my mom loved it and she's really particular about her cheesecake. The only changes I made were to go heavier on the spices and I didn't strain the pumpkin puree. To satisfy Nev's request, I decided to make a cranberry chocolate chip cookie. These came out surprisingly good (and I am not a chocolate and fruit kind of girl). There is still a bit tweaking to do with this recipe but it's a keeper-just like he is! After watching, the Deen Brother's Thanksgiving on the Cooking Channel, my mom wanted to switch up our normal sweet potato recipe of chucks of sweet potatoes covered in a gooey mixture of honey, syrup, butter and spices. I was game for trying it! Their's was a Sweet Potato Souffle. After making my own adjustments (taking out the bacon, cream cheese and adding a few more spices), what I came up with was an airy, sweet (but not overpowering) souffle. Now I am normally not fond of the sweet potato casserole. even though I make it every year, but this was so tasty! I think we will being using this recipe for Thanksgivings to come. After a long day of laughing, football, and cooking, we all sat down to our holiday feast. Everything was so delicious, that I went back from seconds! All in all, Thanksgiving 2014 was a success! It was great spending quality time with family, especially since I don't see them as often as I want to. Now it's time to get to get started on Christmas treats. Christmas isn't Christmas without cookies!!!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
May 2017
|