I’ve spent Thanksgiving in Corpus Christi with Jose’s family almost every year since 2006, but this year we stayed at home in Houston for obvious (cough, coronavirus) reasons. It was the first time we have both stayed here AND not made plans to gather with local friends, which meant for the first time ever, I had to figure out how to make the holiday fun for our little foursome!
Happily, this wasn’t too hard to do as we are all pretty laid back and easy to please when it comes to holidays.
I wanted to have a nice Thanksgiving meal, but with only four of us — and knowing the kids wouldn’t eat a ton — I didn’t want to go overboard. I think we hit a nice sweet spot of having some of our favorites while avoiding too much excess!
Making a turkey has always been a bucket list item for me, but when the opportunity actually presented itself this year, I found that I was less interested in the turkey and more interested in other dishes. So we ordered a smoked turkey from a local meat market! Super easy, and it was delicious.
On Thanksgiving day, Jose handled reheating and carving the turkey and made creamy mashed potatoes from the Pioneer Woman cookbook. I made broccoli slaw and chocolate silk pie — both Smitten Kitchen recipes, although the pie one is only in her cookbook.
(The chocolate silk pie was AMAZING and I would have already made it again if not for the fact that I’m trying to lose my pandemic pounds, not add to them! Ha.)
We got a pumpkin pie from the grocery store, made gravy from a package, made Stove Top stuffing, and baked a package of frozen rolls. (I need to get my friend Becca’s stuffing recipe because hers is so yummy, but honestly I really like Stove Top too!)
When I got out our Thanksgiving decorations a few weeks earlier, I found a couple craft kids that we hadn’t done last year including this turkey. The girls worked on it together and filled the feathers with things they are thankful for — everything from legos to life itself!
We were able to facetime with Jose’s family while we (and they) ate our meals, and then with some of my family in the evening. Even though we weren’t face to face, we still go to spend a bit of time together!
All in all it was a very nice holiday with my favorite people.
p.s. I’m doing a 31 day blogging challenge.
If you want to up your stuffing game next year, Martha Stewart has a great sausage stuffing recipe that I have made a lot over the years. We did Stove Top this year because we were camping but I will make the sausage stuffing for Christmas instead! https://www.marthastewart.com/337095/cornbread-and-sausage-stuffing
Its funny, Byron prefers plain stove top to my AMAZING stuffing. I don’t know why.
As for my recipe, I reinvent it a little every year. But the basics are that I use the Pepperidge farm stuffing bread crumbs (following the recipe on the back regarding how much butter and broth to use)
Before making the stuffing – I pre-cook ground pork and bacon (the bacon to just barely cooked through not crispy), set it aside; Lightly sautee hot diced peppers, onions, diced mushrooms, garlic, salt, and pepper in butter and that gets added to the boiling broth as part of the recipe on the stuffing bag. Once the stuffing bag recipe is complete and the stuffing is “fluffed” in the broth – get a big bowl, combine the stuffing with the pork.bacon + diced/skinned green granny apple + slices almonds + dried cranberries, and more diced fresh (uncooked) jalapenos. Mix well. Spice mixture with more salt, pepper, more fresh pressed garlic, dried thyme, and dried rosemary. Then stuff the turkey (its always better in the turkey!) shove in some pats of butter and some whole fresh rosemary sprigs (lots of them, I used to steal them from building 1). If you bake in a casserole dish, put butter pats and rosemary sprigs on top.
You can make this all the night before thanksgiving and then just stuff the turkey on thanksgiving morning (or pop the casserole dish in the oven 45 minutes before dinner).
Frankly its sort of a “kitchen sink” stuffing, none of the ingredients alone are essential (besides the bread itself) but every individual one makes it better. I think you absolutely need at least one of the pork products, the rosemary, and one of the sweet things (like apple or cranberries) to get the flavor right.
I do love Stove Top, but I’d pick yours over the box when it’s available! 🙂 I knew you didn’t have a super strict recipe for it. Maybe next year I’ll try it!
I should also clarify the ground pork is just like the recipe above from Martha Stewart, by ground pork, I mean pork sausage, you can just remove the casing if that’s the best way to get it.
I have made a full turkey a few times and it’s actually pretty easy. You have definitely made more complex things but I did feel pretty accomplished after making one. I do highly prefer our current approach in which Joel’s parents host and make turkey and we bring a side dish.
Also I love stuffing and now really want to try a new recipe from the other comments.
Yeah, I decided against making it not because it felt too hard, but just because I thought it’d be more fun to make other things!