The Doggy Diaries... gone to the dogs!

A Happy [Belated] Thanksgiving

So I may be a day late, but hopefully I'm not a dollar short.

I'd like to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all had a wonderful day spent basking in the warmth and love of family and friends.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving at the Doggy Diaries home. My mom and step dad battled absolutely mind-blowing traffic for almost four hours as they made their way from their home in the central part of the state to our home. Even though they were going in the "wrong direction" and were driving on Thanksgiving Day instead of the night before Thanksgiving, the traffic still added approximately 30-40% more time to their drive than they had expected. I felt so bad that they had to deal with that traffic, but I can only imagine what the traffic would have been like for darling hubby and I had we been the ones to drive. We would have been going with the bulk of traffic. It could easily have taken us about 5.5-6 hours to reach their home even though the distance is only 190 miles. (DH made that drive for Thanksgiving 2001, and it took him right about six hours to get there.)

We enjoyed a rather traditional Thanksgiving dinner with a slight twist; instead of preparing a full turkey for just four people, I made Cornish Game Hen. Each bird was rubbed down with a handful of butter and sprinkled lightly with pepper before being placed in a large baking bag in the oven. All four birds fit in one bag and were baked at 350 degrees for 1.75 hours until the skins were a beautiful, golden brown. Much of the fat and butter melted away.

Let me tell you, cooking game hens this way produces such tender meat! I tried to lift each bird out of the baking bag with a pair of kitchen tongs. The meat was so tender, however, that the birds basically fell apart as I tried to lift each one out of the bag. Rather than have beautiful little "mini turkeys" on everyone's plate, we wound up with mounds of meat.

The other dishes we all shared were sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green beans with pearl onions, apple/onion/carrot stuffing, a fresh Caesar salad, bread sticks, croissants sweetened with melted marshmallows, and my own homemade cranberry conserve made with apples, pears and oranges. We had three different desserts. Of course, what would Thanksgiving be without a pumpkin pie? There was also a layered dish of chocolate pudding with sweetened cream cheese, and finally, a cherry mousse with cherry compote, whipped cream and sweetened, condensed milk.

It was a meal fit for royalty! And yes, we completely gorged ourselves. In fact, we ate so much at dinner that we couldn't even bear the thought of dessert for a good three hours!

What can I say but that we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and the time spent chatting and catching up with one another. My only regret is that my sister and her husband couldn't be here to share the day with us.

Once again, let me say "Happy Thanksgiving." May we all learn to find reasons to give thanks each and every day. All my best goes out to you and yours.