early Thanksgiving 2006

We celebrated Thanksgiving a little early this year (the Saturday before), because Nathan came for a visit. I made the whole spread--9 lb turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce and applesauce and pumpkin cake for dessert.

It was fun to do, but I was a little pressed for time. Dinner was supposed to start at 5 p.m. (We'd invited the Elders over as well, and they had a baptism at 7 p.m., so timing was essential), but the turkey didn't cook quite as quickly as I'd calculated. We ended up eating around 5:45. :-( Everything tasted good, so I think I'd do it again--without any morning plans. (I'd spent the morning at a PartyLite regional meeting, and hadn't gotten home until 1:45 p.m.)

Here is a pic of our Thanksgiving dinner table. We even used the good dishes.

I would have liked to have gotten a few more pictures from the evening--with the missionaries, Nathan, Jeff and I, but we were too short on time, and I wanted the Elders to be able to eat.

I saved the turkey carcass after dinner to try my hand at making some homemade turkey soup. Here's a pic:

The soup turned out pretty good, but it could have definitely used more salt and more substance. I put in celery, carrots, turkey (of course), potatoes and orzo pasta. Next time, I'll definitely add more of everything and no orzo pasta. I thought that would be good, but it got too mushy and was a weird slimy texture. Next time, I'll think I'll use spirals. With only 3 of us at home, we'll be eating soup for quite awhile! :-)

I also made some baking soda biscuits--from scratch--to accompany the soup. I'd never made them before. They tasted pretty yummy, but they didn't rise all that much. Maybe that's the way they're supposed to be...