Barbara's Beat: Thanksgiving plans contest, please help by leaving me a comment
Sam's Club

Friday, November 26, 2010

Thanksgiving plans contest, please help by leaving me a comment

Thanksgiving is not what it use to be. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, because I bet no one else had a day like mine. Thanksgiving dinner is so much easier now.

I slept in until lunch time. I use to get up at dawn to start cooking that bird. Not any more. I learned a secret. Not only is deep-fried turkey good, but hubby cooks it, and it only takes 45 minutes.

My part in prepping Tom for the party was to shoot him up to make him happy, then massage him well to relax him before he got dipped into the hot spa for his treatment. When he came out he was singing my song - crispy.

Now, for the rest of my dinner. Instead of making homemade yeast rolls like I use to, I make the ones from the freezer of Walmart, and they're just as good as mine. I wish I had known that years ago.

Gravy comes out of a jar now that I don't have the turkey drippings, and it tastes so good. It may be better.

I use whole canned green beans and add bacon. After they cook a while they taste like fresh beans. 

As for corn, I prefer white. I just add a stick of butter to the canned corn and heat it up.

Dressing takes a little longer to make. Maybe I should use Stove Top.

I dump bags of cubed seasoned bread into a big bowl. Then use a small food processor to chop celery and onions to add to the bread. I add a couple sticks of melted butter to a pot of water with the neck and other bag of goodies I found inside of Tom to make a broth to pour over the bread. Then, add poultry seasoning, salt and pepper. After mixing, dump it in a baking dish, and bake it until it browns.

Sweet potatoes are peeled and sliced, and put into a baking dish. I cut pats of butter on top, add pumpkin spice seasoning, and brown sugar. Then I bake until the potatoes are tender. Finally, I add marshmallows and turn on the broiler for about 2 minutes to brown.

I can't serve instant potatoes for dinner on a holiday, so I talked hubby into peeling them. Then I boiled and mashed them with butter, sour cream, bacon bits, chives, salt and pepper.

And for a little zip, cucumbers and onions round out our dinner. More slicing and dicing, mixing in salt, pepper, sugar, Miracle Whip, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and vinegar.

Pumpkin pie is so much easier now that it comes in a box from the bakery. All I have to do is heat, add whipped topping and eat.

After I cooked all that food, I packed up half of everything and took it to my mom's house. She had to work until 10:30 p.m. at Walmart. And she has house guests, too. Our relatives from W.Va., came down to visit and do a little shopping.

Now, while everyone is out shopping, I'll sleep. Then when I get up, I can enjoy the day with my hubby, because today's our 35th anniversary. No cooking today.

Full Disclosure: This is an entry to the “Plan it, Blog it! 2010 Thanksgiving Blog Writing Contest” www.uprinting.com   http://www.giveawayblogs.com/forum/topics/plan-it-blog-it-2010

Share/Save/Bookmark

31 comments:

pwhite7408 said...

Happy anniversary mom and dad....hope you have a great day!

pwhite7408 said...

by the way, stove top is easy and very good! I baked it with celery and onions with some broth.....very good....then when it was almost done I put butter on top to let it melt and mixed it in. Yummy :)

Tamara B. said...

I am glad you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I think Thanksgiving dinner is one of the easiest to prepare and cook :)

Johanna said...

Wish I could sleep late, but have 1 year old that wakes up when the sun does. : ( Good luck in the contest!

That Bald Chick said...

Sounds like my day! We ordered dinner from the local grocery, Dierberg's. It included pork loin with apples and dried cherries; savory roasted butternut squash; three cheese au gratin potatoes; corn casserole; and rolls. Then I grabbed a Fit N Active turkey breast. We opened two cans of green beans and one of mushroom soup, baked then added the french fried onions. Opened one can of cranberry sauce. And I made a simple jello pumpkin dessert. Mmmm. Less than an hour and a half of cooking, and dinner was great. Plus, I didn't have to cook today.
Happy anniversary, by the way!

Penelope said...

Wow, 35 years! My parents just celebrated 34, and my husband and I celebrated 2, lol. Our son turned one today (he's a Thanksgiving baby).

By the way, awesome site!

Penelope said...

I also have to tell you, you look way too young to be celebrating 35 years...you LOOK 35 years old!!

Stefani @ MommyEnterprises.com said...

I wish I could have slept in. I was up before the crack of dawn preparing my dinner. I made a turkey and a ham along with lots of other goodies.

Hope you had a wonderful day!

jennydecki said...

Happy Anniversary! Congrats on sleeping in - I'll sleep someday when my kids are grown. I can't WAIT! I will remember your tips, too, I can guarantee it!

Jessica Warrick said...

Happy anniversary and im a longtime follower stopping by form the friday blog hop.

Carol said...

Stopping by on the hop to say hello. Happy Anniversary!!

Unknown said...

I will send over info when I get the button and all the rules, linky and so forth. i need one more co host. hope i find one soon. thanks again for your help. i will have the button by tommorrow i work so it will be in the evening or monday when i get that to you.. if i get it tonight i will send the info over

Julie from TheLittleKitchen.net said...

35 years? That's awesome. Congratulations!

Karen said...

I used to cook the whole deal too--but now that it is just me and my husband, I cook whatever we want--this year, it was a small ham, rutabagas, potato salad, and a home made pumpkin pie. I wasn't up at dawn cooking, and didn't over eat, either. Just relaxed and enjoyed the day.

Unknown said...

Great post! I had to work on Thanksgiving :(

I'm following you back Thank you1
Tiffany
http://tiffspixiedust.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

I hope you win!

I'm glad you were finally able to link up to the blog hop.

I do the beefed up Stove Top. All the food items my hubby and kids want as traditional dinner are very easy. If I make the turkey the day before, I can have everything else ready in an hour.

Blessings

MusingMom6

Welcome To My Kitchen said...

Hello again Barbara I have all the info for you and the button to post next saturday for the blog hop. if you respond tonight i can go ahead and go live with the post it is up to you or we can do this next week, thanks so much for being a co host.

TerriAnn @ Cookies and Clogs said...

What a spread! I need to come over to your house for dinner - your meal sounded delish!

Emy said...

Great menu! Congrats on the anniversary :-)

StacieinAtlanta said...

Congrats on the anniversary.

Amber said...

We usually end up spending the day before doing all the prep work and then the next day cooking. It takes ALL day, but it's totally worth it. Deep fried turkey sounds delicious, but then our stuffing just wouldn't be the same. We deep fry a lot of stuff (even our cookies and chocolate bars haha) so the turkey is so tempting. One thing I think is SO good deep fried, but which I've never been able to master is ice cream! Yumm! :)

Hope you enjoyed your anniversary!!

Katie said...

I have always wanted to try a fried turkey! Happy Anniversary!

heather@actingbalanced.com said...

Happy belated anniversary!

Deep fried turkey sounds delicious, but a lot of work...

Anonymous said...

That sounds absolutely amazing!

Beeb said...

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving and happy anniversary, too! I'd like to try a fried turkey!

Anonymous said...

That is awesome! Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Mrs. Lefler said...

Congratulations and I am happy you had such a wonderful holiday.

If you want to make the mashed potatoes even easier, I use red potatoes and wash them well. Then cut in 1/4 and cook with skins on. They are so yummy!

Show Me Mama said...

Congratulations on your Anniversary! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving as well.
Thanks for sharing

Ellen said...

Sounds delicious and a lot less work than mine LOL!

Whitney said...

Happy Anniversary!

Crystal said...

Happy Anniversary!
sounds like a great thanksgiving dinner..mmm