Love and a Full Belly

The turkey carcass is simmering in the stockpot as we watched Home Alone after a very Happy Thanksgiving. It was a perfect little holiday. Carter and Claire and I did the last minute cooking. With Claire’s superior chopping skills we made the most delicious salad of sliced raw Brussels spouts, pears, apples, roasted butternut squash, dried cherries, pomegranate, arugula and goat cheese. It was probably my favorite dish of the day.

My mother came and was delightful as she is a favorite of Carter and Claire’s. Her eyes are always bigger than her stomach, but we packed her up another five meals worth of food to take home.

I went back to my old faithful Alton Brown brined turkey and cooked a whole bird which was perfect. Claire and Carter declared my gravy was the best part of the meal. The secret was adding the mushroom Unami seasoning from Trader Joe’s.

The stuffing-off was not even a race, as Claire’s family recipe was a whole meal unto itself with the sausage and peppers. It was still nice to have the traditional to make the perfect bite of turkey, dressing, gravy and cranberry.

We had enough food for twenty, but were only five. But a happy five we were. I will be making turkey tetrazzini for Russ tomorrow so he will have frozen meals when I am gone. I will have to make homemade mushroom soup in the morning with the turkey stock that is all simmered.

The kitchen is clean and full of so many leftovers anyone can feed themselves at any time of the day or night.

We are grateful that we are all together and thankful for the love of friends and family. Hoping you too had a love filled day and went to bed full. Neither love, nor a full belly is a given these days. I take none of this for granted.