Giving Thanks

(ok, so we are behind...if you want to come and do the ironing, we'll get these done quicker! ha ha).
(**photos to be added when blogger decides to behave itself**)

Thanksgiving this year was fun...we had out things back, and there was turkey! Jake has already told you about the bounty of our turkey, but this year we had Gram and Opa here to help celebrate. First, I massaged the turkey with an herbed butter - who knew pasture life could be so tense.

Then we all went for a hike while the turkey filled the house with wonderful smells. (Isn't that the best part, walking into the house after you've been gone to be greeted by the smell of roasting turkey.) Our menu was modest this year. We had to accept that it was the smallest Thanksgiving in many, many years for us. Without Heather, Meegs, paleo-Heather, and Mart, along with assorted others, we couldn't really justify (or produce) the massive side dish and dessert spread of years past. So we kept it simple - cornbread stuffing, green bean casserole, monkey rolls (which, by the way, were quite a feat as I had lost the recipe card that came with the pan Martha sent for herbed rolls in the monkey bread pan - after much internet and house searching, I just called a Williams-Sonoma and made them read the recipe to me over the phone. The woman sounded slightly annoyed, but I was determined and they were tasty...now, where is that recipe?), green bean casserole, salad, and apple pie & chocolate pie for dessert.

The night before T-giving, Elena and Opa were in charge of making the chocolate cream pie. I'm not exactly sure what happened - Elena was in charge of showing little Opa the mixer ropes - but it ended with chocolate pudding everywhere - including Elena's forehead and shirt.

Here Jake cleans it off the wall.

Little opa did admit to 'operator error.'

We had some very nice wine with dinner (our chilled version loving wrapped in our custom made 'stuffing shovel' towel from paleo-Heather - one of our treasured Thanksgiving items! After blessing, we offered the first toast, in honor of Aunt Martha, who we really, really missed that day. And from her blog, the goose looked lovely. We do request a photo of Henri's chocolate mousse, though.