This post is always meant to be one you can “read” with mindless scrolling through photos to experience our Thanksgiving. For those keeping track at home, the day started at 6:30am and ended at 10pm when the last guest left. A full day of food, laughs and drinks.
This photo diary includes recipes from our Thanksgiving meal! So here we go!
Today started before the sun came up. This is me, Black Friday shopping and simultaneously planning out the day’s timeline while lying in bed.
I shared this tip last year, but here it is again. Your 2 best friends on Thanksgiving Day are: chicken stock and your phone – the alarms on your phone that is. I plan my whole day out and set alarms to keep me honest.
Next, you should be sure to taste taste everything to see if it needs more salt, or more bourbon.
Our first step in making Thanksgiving a little easier (besides my phone alarm trick) was to make a punch ahead of time so we could eliminate the need for Mr KK to make 1,000,000 drinks before he could get a sip of his own cocktail. This punch was a crowd pleaser! Highly recommend – here’s the recipe for Bourbon Rosemary punch.
When we prep for hosting, I’m usually in charge of the inside of the house – which includes watching the dogs and entertaining Little Mister – while Mr. KK handles the outside. Yesterday was a little over 50 degrees, so we were able to set up our patio heater and chairs on our new deck in case anyone wanted to get some fresh air.
No one wanted to enjoy the deck…but we found 5 minutes to take a breather out there.
Let’s talk turkey…and everything else!
We did 2 turkeys again this year: a full turkey in the fryer (house in still intact) and a turkey breast in the oven. Both turkeys came out amazingly juicy! My mother-in-law preps the turkeys, and my father-in-law drives the birds over the morning of Thanksgiving and enjoys a drink with Mr. KK (and me!). Our turkey breast had a garlic and herb marinade and the fryer turkey had a rub on it.
Everyone makes jokes about my mother-in-laws breasts (we are nothing if not inappropriate) as part of tradition.
Thanksgiving Menu 2022
Appetizers
Butternut Squash Soup Shooters with Creme Fresh. I used this recipe for the soup and it was delicious. The sage and ginger really added a depth of flavor.
Caramelized Onion and Gruyere Rugelach
Every Christmas I make cinnamon and sugar rugelach, but this is a savory take on one of my favorite cookies. I used this savory rugelach recipe, but substituted gruyere for the cheddar, and candied pecans for the candied walnuts, just to put my own spin on it.
Interestingly, I found the recipe in a magazine – yes, a paper magazine – and I didn’t even look it up. Well, if you click on the recipe link, you’ll see that this recipe only got 1.5 stars from 2 reviewers. From personal experience, this recipe got 5 stars across the board from our family! Perhaps it was the subtle changes I made (nuttier cheese vs boring cheddar). But I highly recommend. Plus, you make it with pre made pie dough so it’s super easy.
The last appetizer I made was the Spicy Whipped Feta from this blog post. Somehow, I didn’t get a pick of it, but it was also really good; I served it with baby naans.
Soup Course
Our cousin (cousin in law?) made a delicious, light soup. I’m going from memory, but it was a veal stock with chicken and mortadella meatballs, with escarole and ditallini. It was the perfect first course!
Main Meal
The turkeys were the real stars of the show, and TBH, I don’t even really love turkey. But I loved picking off the crispy skin and dark meat that fell off the fried turkey!
This is happiest Mr. KK looked after an hour of stress when the new turkey fryer pan set up DID NOT WORK and he put the turkey in the oil and it barely covered the turkey. This was after the oil wasn’t hot enough and we had to heat it for another half hour. This was all going on while we were serving up the soup course, so thankfully no one heard all the swearing going on in the front yard. But it all worked out and we ended up with one golden brown bird. The best part about the fried turkey is that a 16 pound bird cooks in about 45 minutes!
For sides, we had stuffing (made with sourdough, apples, pancetta and apricots), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, dressing and Ina’s Cacio e Pepe Asparagus.
All assembled, it looked like this:
Little Mister was not a fan of any of the food we were serving (aren’t 8 year olds fun??) but he agreed to try some foods (which was a win). Here is his plate, which could easy be called “Deconstructed Thanksgiving” and be served in a Michelin Star restaurant for $50.
After he finished “eating” the plate looked the exact same except a small piece of turkey was gone (he gave turkey a “Maybe”), the tip of the asparagus was missing (10 minutes of chewing with a weird look on his face) and all of the sweet potatoes were gone (“this tastes like pumpkin pie filling”).
Dessert
Pecan pie, pumpkin pie and cheesecake!
I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving with loved ones!
8:04am…time to start changing this house into Christmas!
Life of kk 