Category: thanksgiving

cocktails, cooking, Entertaining, Family, food, Mr. KK, recipe, thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving…Told In Pictures

littleshoeprincess

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.

If you look closely you can see the reflection of the phone in my glasses.

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.

Crazy hair, no makeup and full-on prep mode. Taste-testing the punch at 10:39am.

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.

Aren’t they beautiful?

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.

Mr. KK in his signature party day move: blowing leaves.
Two minutes before everyone arrived…let’s hope this all goes well! (Little did I know the fried turkey fiasco that was to follow!)

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.

Another punch for me!

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.

Getting ready to cut and roll the rugelach.
Here they are! The can brown quite a bit on the bottom when the sugar from the pecans oozes out, but that just adds flavor!

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!

That is one nice looking breast (well, two actually).
Dueling carvers! And a very messy kitchen!

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 am done fighting with WordPress and why it keeps adding this photo upside down. I have tried to fix this about 4 times. You get the idea.

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving with loved ones!

8:04am…time to start changing this house into Christmas!

cooking, thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Prep, A Car Accident & My First Adult Bevy Since October

littleshoeprincess

Well, today was a DAY!

It started at 6am when I was up crying in the kitchen chopping onions for various holiday dishes. Last night I made my checklist like a Boomer and was ready to go this morning. On today’s prep list: stuffing, soup, cranberry sauce, appetizer prep and cocktail juices.

Me, mentally preparing myself for the day before the sun comes up.
Allergic to apples, but I still put them in the stuffing!
Can I use every pan in the house? Challenge accepted.
The most important parts of the prep…cocktail prep!

After finished my Thanksgiving prep in what I thought was record time, I found myself with a day off from work and time to spare until I needed to be at the bus stop so I headed to TJ Maxx to make a return. And when I returned to my car, I found this:

A woman got out of her car when I approached mine. “Excuse me, miss?” she said. And she immediately gained points for not calling me ma’am. “I was leaving you a note. I hit your car.” And then the day went downhill.

So a cop came, we exchanged information, I got a police report that said I wasn’t in the car when this happened and then I was on my merry way back home.

Fast forward to 3pm, when it felt like an appropriate time to have my first adult beverage since October (since October, people!), so the 3 of us went to a brewery to have a beer. And man, did it taste GOOD. Mr. KK and I had beers, Little Mister looked like this:

Mr. Too Cool for School. This in a window into his teenage years, I’m sure.

Tomorrow, is my annual Thanksgiving post in pictures. Possibly with recipes. Definitely with cocktails.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve. If you’re out drinking with your high school friends, god love ya. If you’re home drinking after your kids to go to bed, I feel ya. Cheers!

Christmas, cooking, thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving Week, B*tches!

littleshoeprincess

Or, as I like to refer to it: 5 days until Christmas is unleashed!

This is the week when it starts to feel like the holiday season. I spent today in Christmas glory at an inspirational store near her house that was filled with all the decor and scents and greenery you could ever want. It was the kind of place that had decor for houses without children or dogs. So. Much. Glass.

Here are a few photos from how beautiful it was! I could have walked around all day!

I loved this sugar plum themed tree. There were about 10 different themed trees.
Everything was beautiful blown glass; basically stuff I can have in 10 years.
These were some gorgeous christmas tress. I love when places hang them from the tops so you can see what they will look like fully opened! When we go they are all wrapped up and we have to shake it loose and use our imaginations.

So the upcoming week looks like this:

Monday: This is a big week because…(drumroll)…tomorrow is WEIGH IN DAY for the end of the Fit 2 Feast challenge! FINALLY! Tomorrow morning at 6:45am I will find out if my hard work paid off and if I lost any pounds and any body fat. If the scale does not move, I may legit cry ugly tears at the kickboxing studio. If I find out I didn’t have any cocktails or french fries or ice cream or – and this is hard to believe – CHEESE – for three weeks for NOTHING, I will be mucho mad. Then off to a full day of work. Then helping sort pies for our PTA pie fundraiser.

Tuesday: It’s Colonial Day at school, so I’m helping out during my lunch hour. while they kids go from room to room to make different “old timey” crafts. All I know is Little Mister needs to bring in an orange (??) and I donated pipe cleaners and large popsicle sticks. Then Little Mister is double-booked for a hair cut and his first basketball practice. We really need that pre-holiday haircut, but I may have to move it to accommodate the first basketball practice.

Wednesday: Game On! I took the full day off to do all of my Thanksgiving cooking and prep. I’ll be making soup, stuffing, parts of appetizer recipes. I’ll be juicing grapefruits and lemons for cocktails. Then apron down and a manicure and dinner out for some non-challenge-worthy food (hopefully the night before Thanksgiving crowds aren’t too crazy!)

Thursday: Turkey Day! Wake up at the crack of dawn and set my 47 timers and prepare for the day! Every year on this day my blog post is a Thanksgiving in pictures…and this year will be no different!

Friday: Buh-bye gourds, hello garland! I hope to have all the fall stuff put away by 10am so I can start bringing up the Christmas bins. I plan to be decorating for at least 4-5 hours. I did concede and we will not be getting our tree this early. That will be the first weekend in December.

And you know who comes the weekend after Thanksgiving…

He’s coming baaaaack…..
food, NaBloPoMo, thanksgiving

2021 Thanksgiving in Photos

littleshoeprincess

Happy turkey day!

This was our Thanksgiving craft this year!

Well, in true KK fashion, things could NOT go smoothly. We started the morning with a non-working oven, but at 11am Mr. KK pulled through and replaced the lighter so we were back in business!

My oven. Taken apart. Just a mere 30 minutes before I had to preheat for the bird.

Did anyone else wake up at 5:13am and plan out the timing of the day? And then follow that up with timers set as reminders? No? Just me?

Welcome to Crazy Town, folks. Population: 1.

So once the oven was fixed we could get this day started! Not pictured below are the 1,000,000 cocktails I had.

Homemade pasta from the chef! We always look forward to the first course!

My dad – MY DAD – made stuffed artichokes this year. They were delicious! He’s hired!

This year we once again decided to fry a turkey. Oh, except the pan we fry in had holes in it (which we discovered once Mr. KK put the oil in it). And we didn’t have another pan big enough to hold the oil and the turkey so we had to improvise. Broken-down fried turkey parts it is! And they were delicious!

Our oven turkey breast – came out perfect!

We added a few new dishes to our repertoire this year:

Ina Garten’s Leek and Mushroom bread pudding replaced our usual stuffing. Highly recommend!

For appetizers, I made hummus that I put out with pita chips and veggies. Creamy and delicious!

I am so thankful that we were able to be together, and that we’re all healthy. 2021 was a weird year, and here’s hoping to be back to “normal” in 2022.

Cheers, y’all!

Christmas, cooking, Decorating, Elf on the Shelf, Entertaining, NaBloPoMo, thanksgiving

Why Am I So Behind This Year?

littleshoeprincess

Yesterday, a family member asked me what they could bring to Thanksgiving. My first thought was like, ‘I’m not even thinking about Thanksgiving yet,’ and then my second thought was, ‘Wait…Thanksgiving is next week?’

Next week!

Last year at this time, the house was already decorated for Christmas, but last year was “Because, COVID” so pretty much anything was acceptable. This year, Mr. KK has given me the firm “not until after Thanksgiving” rule for Christmas decorating. So I patiently wait until Black Friday to change over our house…

Do I feel so behind this year because last year I was so ahead of the game? Did not leaving the house and having zero social life mean that I was able to kick start the holiday season? I feel like I had more gifts bought, more meals planned, more holly jolly going on.

Next weekend our little elf on a shelf arrives, his annual journey down from the North Pole, the weekend after Thanksgiving, with a box filled with goodies to kick off the holiday season: Christmas jammies, a new Christmas book, and a Christmas ornament. And, of course, the start of Elf Shenanigans for the season.

And don’t get me started on holiday shopping. I have about 3 gifts purchased, and zero ideas for everyone else.

It’s not only the feeling of being behind on the holidays, it’s the feeling of being behind on life in general. Was I always trying to juggle this much? Did I always feel this overwhelmed? Was preparing dinner every night this much of a dreaded task? (Likely, yes.) When did we start wearing all of these clothes that needed washing? How are we dirtying so many dishes? Why is the countertop constantly covered in piles of mail and ‘stuff’? And why can I never find the time to clean up/put away/wash anything?

If I was waking up early to overthink my life before, it’s in overdrive now. Mentally making lists for gifts, recipe planning for holidays, thinking through an email to send for work, remembering to send in Little Mister’s library book on Tuesdays, and his homework on Fridays.

It’s apparently time to start thinking about Thanksgiving, a mere week away; appetizers, side dishes, desserts…holiday cocktail! And right after turkey day, turn around and do it all again for Christmas…and including a mischievous elf, a man in a big red suit, and FINALLY…Christmas music.

NaBloPoMo, thanksgiving

Still So Much For Which to Be Thankful

littleshoeprincess

I’m sitting here on Thanksgiving Eve, remembering the old days when at 10pm I’d just be getting dressed to go out on the biggest party night of the year (we’re talking 20 years ago, here). How when tonight I’m using toothpicks to hold open my eyes, back then I’d be applying eye liner. I’d be wondering who I was going to see (vs now when I go out and pray I don’t see anyone!).

But for so many reasons, this year is different. I’m old, for one. Two, I have a kid. And three, I have zero desire to be out past 8pm (pandemic or no pandemic).

2020 was – and will continue to be – a dumpster fire.

But even with all that has happened – losing my grandmother, getting Lyme disease, Mr. KK falling off his parents’ roof (he’s miraculously ok!) – I still have so much to be thankful for this year.

Our health. We’re all healthy. Yes, I was slightly neurotic about it, but it was for good reasons. When the pandemic started it was like herding goats keeping the seniors at home. But, thankfully, they are all healthy, too.

Our time with Little Mister. Was it always perfect? NOPE. Did I want to hide in the bathroom some days? YEP. Are we closer because of it? Absolutely. We’ll never have time like this again. I’ll blink me eyes and he’ll be telling me, “You can leave now, Mom.” Oh, how I wish he could stay small forever.

My time with Mr. KK. In March we found ourselves both working from home. And our work schedules – and responsibilities – couldn’t be more different. My work days consist of back-to-back meetings pretty much the whole day, with me multi-tasking and trying to get work done in small pockets of time between my meetings or when I’m scarfing down lunch. Basically, my entire days are planned out. Mr. KK, on the other hand, rarely has meetings. Instead, he has random coworkers and clients calling him throughout the day to ask him questions. That would drive me bananas! I could never work like that! So we had to coordinate work schedules, Little Mister schedules, and dog schedules. And through it all, we got a better understanding of what each of us did every day. I can’t believe how much he’s responsible for, and he can’t believe how many hats I wear and positions I “cover”. Last weekend, in an effort to get our kitchen back and provide a better workspace or Mr. KK, he moved into the office with me. COZY! It’s nice having a coworker officemate!

I learned to appreciate doing nothing. I don’t know how to relax. It’s a personality flaw that I’m not proud of. I can never just sit down and watch a movie, I need to be doing something else: making a grocery list, folding laundry, going through emails. Because I can’t let myself do nothing. Well, over the last 8 months, I learned how to do nothing. And, not only that, I learned to like it. Having a blank social calendar meant finding myself on a Saturday morning wondering what we were going to do all weekend. Some weekends, it would be 2pm and I would realize that I hadn’t gotten dressed yet (gone were the day of my early morning grocery store and Target runs). One rainy afternoon, Little Mister and I laid on the couch and watched movies all day. And you know what? It was awesome. Things I would obsess over getting done over the weekend no longer mattered. Honestly, if I accomplished one thing on a Saturday, I chalked it up to a good day.

Little Mister is thriving in school. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we chose full remote learning for him because we had the resources to do it successfully. We had no idea what to expect. I had heard horror stories from friends who had kids who moved to remote learning this past March. What would kindergarten be like for him on a computer? But somehow, it’s all working out. He loves school, he’s starting to read, he likes having us next to him when he’s learning. Once we got through the initial Chromebook issues, everything fell into place. Thank goodness!

We’re appreciating the little things. Family dinners each night. Game nights. Impromptu games of hide and seek. Things we didn’t have time for before, are suddenly the most important things we do.

I am thankful for my family. And for my sanity – however much longer I can hang onto it.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

NaBloPoMo, thanksgiving

‘Twas the night before Thanksgiving

littleshoeprincess

Besides being the biggest travel day of the year (I’m sure everyone has a story of nightmare traffic…I know I do!), it’s also the biggest going out night of the year. I’m sure there are millennials around the globe putting on makeup and flat ironing their hair, selecting outfits to make ex-boyfriends jealous, and pre-gaming before heading to the town bar.

Ah, the old days.

My current Thanksgiving Eve consists of clipping preschooler fingernails and toe nails and watching Blaze and the Monster Machines. And honestly, I wouldn’t trade it for my past life because in my currently life, I’m able to be in bed by 10pm. (9:30pm if I’m lucky).

These days, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving means the day off from work, prepping all the delicious food for our feast, and doing a little afternoon drinking with Mr. KK.

Today’s prep went rather smoothly, with me sailing into the kitchen at 7:30am, fresh off of my drive home from Boston. I chopped, sliced, diced, sautéed, mixed and blended my way to being ready for guests tomorrow.

IMG_2578

And every year – every. single. year. – when I make my pumpkin cheesecake, I follow the directions religiously (don’t over mix, reduce oven heat, leave in oven for 2 hours when it’s done) to avoid cracks…to no avail. This year’s crack is rather impressive, I sure hope it tastes good!

This year is the second year we’re not going to do our Black Friday tradition of shopping and lunch. I’m not talking 3am wait in line madness; no, we used to head to the mall around 9:30am on Friday. At that time all of the early birds were wrapping up and clearing out; it was like a changing of the shopping guards, so to speak.

So whether you’re heading out to the bar or heading to bed (it’s almost time!), may you have a wonderful holiday with family and friends. We all have so much to be thankful for.

(I’m thankful I’ve kept up with my NaBloPoMo without driving Mr. KK crazy (which is what usually happens) when I have writer’s block.)