Posts made in November 27th, 2008

Turkey Wurkey

Posted by Michelle on Nov 27, 2008 in Family, food, Life | 1 comment

Since we were originally planning to go to SoCal for Thanksgiving — *sigh*, stupid finances — we had a small Thanksgiving celebration at my house on Sunday. We don’t have things like fancy dishes or nice serving platters so our Sunday Thanksgiving table was a bit modest with mismatching plates and things served in mixing bowl. But hey, it’s the spirit and not the presentation, right?

My sister has been the designated Thanksgiving cook since she attended culinary school and she always cooks a wonderful spread. This year we feasted upon herb roasted turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, homemade stuffing, corn niblets, peas and (canned) cranberry sauce. I love traditional Thanksgiving menus! She also made her special mushroom strudel which is like spanikopita but better. Sadly, I didn’t get a photo of it. As usual, I was in charge of dessert and made the pumpkin pie. Last year, I went all out and made pumpkin, apple and pecan but alas, that just wasn’t to be. (Too much work!)

The turkey (and all the trimmings) were delicious as was the pumpkin pie. See how perfect that crust is? Wanna know my secret? It’s is Marie Callendars! They make a great, preformed deep dish frozen pie crust. Despite my love of baking, I’ve completely given up trying to make pie crust. The fates have determined that I will forever be unable to make pie crust and risotto. Evil, evil things.

Since we feasted on Sunday, we are already turkeyed out. Our grand culinary adventure today was putting our monster 13.5″ nonstick pan to work by making bánh xèo (Vietnamese crepes). Yes, we realize these have nothing to do with Thanksgiving but they were delicious anyway. Plus The Hubster ™ played chef tonight (though my sister did much of the prep work) which was awesome.

Oh and for something else that has absolutely nothing to do with Thanksgiving, I just wanted to memorialize the fact that The Little Empress got her first taste of phở yesterday. The Hubster ™ is a phở addict and is pleased to see that his little girl has taken after him. I set aside some broth and noodles for her and The Hubster ™ cut the noodles into little pieces for her. One taste and she was hooked — she kept opening up her mouth for more broth and noodles! She liked it so much that I finally had to hand her off to The Hubster ™ so that I could eat my soup. By the time I got to it, my noodles were cold and soggy. BAH!

Enough 2008 — Happy Thanksgiving

Posted by Michelle on Nov 27, 2008 in Life | 0 comments

This year, with the birth of The Little Empress and the purchase of our house, we have so much to be thankful for. Though we’ve never been affluent, I’ve always been profoundly grateful that we’ve always had Enough. Sometimes we’ve had Enough to Share and then some. Other times, we have had Just Enough but always Enough. This year, we have Enough and most importantly, a beautiful daughter to share it with. Being home with The Little Empress in our own home is a dream come true. We’ve had a lot of help and sacrificed a lot to get to this point. I am so profoundly grateful to God and our family that has helped make all of this possible.