thanksgiving.

well things did not turn out exactly as planned. the mister was working from four to midnight, so we planned our big dinner for friday. our menu was roast chicken, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits, my mom's pineapple cheese gelatin salad, cranberry sauce, biscuits, and pecan pie. yummmmmy!! and then i got sick. the grocery shopping did not happen and neither did the cooking.  i ended up eating macaroni & cheese from a box, but happily i woke up today feeling loads better. i shopped the black friday sales from the sanctity of our bed, but by 3pm i could no longer contain myself. i wanted to browse around target (of course) and go to winn dixie to buy a pecan pie, just for a taste of thanksgiving.

the makings of our thanksgiving feast.

our pecan pie trip turned into a full-fledged "let's make a mini-thanksgiving meal." not exactly the meal i had originally planned, but it was not completely awful. we had fried chicken, mashed potatoes from a box, with gravy from a can, pre-packaged dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, potato salad and hawaiian delight from the deli, a store-made pecan pie, a can of whipped cream, and for some reason a watermelon. i am quite certain this was only one step up from having our thanksgiving dinner catered by burger king. but at least the plate of food satisfied my burning desire to participate in the feasts of thanksgiving.

certainly not the worst meal i have ever eaten.

despite not being able to enjoy the actual day of thanksgiving, i am still thankful for all the wonderful things in my life. most importantly, i am thankful for the mister, who this week won the award for world's greatest husband. i am thankful that we are happy and healthy (except for the little blips of colds and flu). and i am thankful for my family and friends, who love me through thick and thin.

i hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving!!!

gobble gobble.

in an attempt to focus on my masters paper i am supposed to be on a blogging hiatus, but i am loathe to do my work and i simply cant resist telling the tale of our thanksgiving. ahh, thanksgiving. the wonderful american holiday dedicated to gorging on delicious food. as the mister and i both have ridiculous amounts of studying to occupy our time and he also had to work everyday, we decided to forgo the usual thanksgiving feast. check. and then the mister left for work. as he stepped out the front door he sniffed the air and declared that the neighbors' cooking smelled delicious. he looked at me. i looked at him. we realized that we wanted to partake in the scrumdidlyumptious delights that come with turkey day. thats right. 1245pm on thanksgiving day and i had to scrounge up a feast. sure. no problem. the first instinct was to buy a pecan pie and declare ourselves satisified. but being in possession of a recipe for the world's most scrumptious pecan pie it seems sacrilegious to purchase a store-made pie. then i pondered the possibilities. if i am planning to make a pie, i might as well make some biscuits and buy a can of jellied cranberry sauce (yum!). at that point i might as well throw together a couple of other treats, so i added green bean casserole and mashed potatoes to the list. and if mashed potatoes will be on the table then we certainly needed gravy. and heck, might as well have some meat.

the shopping. lovely winn dixie just waiting for my arrival. my regular jaunts to the grocery store typically find me spending inordinate amounts of time in the produce and dairy sections. i like to cook from scratch, so i dont typically have a lot of use for pre-cooked and prepared foods. but trying to throw together a feast on the fly, i decided to eliminate my usual snobbish attitude. shopping list: pecans, frozen pie crust, canned green beans, cream of mushroom soup, dried onion rings, canned gravy, rotisserie chicken, jellied cranberry sauce, and flour. thats right - cans cans cans and a few prepared items and i was out the door.

the cooking. i started with the pecan pie. no problem. or so i thought. sometime during its baking, part of it leaped over the edge of the pie crust and laminated itself to the bottom of the oven. nice. nothing like the aroma of burning sugar permeating the house. after that i breezed through the green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and biscuits. heated up the gravy and chicken in the microwave. high class. i cleared off our teeny table and dressed it up with place mats, purty napkins, and candles. voila! instant feast.

total success. the mister and i dined on the delicious treats as if i had planned and cooked for days. now either i have turned into such a skilled chef that i can whip out feasts without a care in the world or, more likely, when you lower your expectations, you simultaneously lower the stress levels to the point that they are imperceptible.