My roommate and I spent some time today preparing parts of our Thanksgiving meal. Over the years, we've found that it's easier to do this in stages, as to not make the day overwhelmed with cooking. It feels good to know that tomorrow, pretty much only one or two things need to happen. This is good, given that I'll be gone part of the day.
We have two unusual additions to our meal this year. One is a 'just by chance' thing. Several weeks back, my roommate found some roasted turkey breasts on a very good sale. He bought two and we froze them. Today, I shredded them off the bone. One will be eaten just as turkey breast. The other was tossed into the dressing. We usually do chicken in the dressing (and have no turkey at all), but this year, we get to upgrade. It's unlikely this will happen again, so I'm going to view it as a nice little change for this one specific Thanksgiving.
The other new addition will hopefully be staying. When we started planning our Thanksgiving meal, we both agreed we didn't like the quality of frozen pumpkin pie we could afford. We also both knew that upgrading to a better pie was not really in the cards. We knocked around alternative dessert ideas, but finally settled on making our own pumpkin pie.
In fact, we settled on this because I volunteered to do it. I found a recipe for pumpkin pie that used Greek yogurt and wanted to try it. It comes to quite a shock to me that I love Greek yogurt as much as I do. I loathe almost every other type of yogurt, but I adore this stuff. I think it works really well as a sub for a lot of things and I am hoping it works well in the pumpkin pie.
The recipe I found was pretty simple. We altered it some because we know what spices we like and the recipe just wasn't giving as forthcoming with them as we wanted. It only called for cloves, ginger, and cinnamon. We added allspice, pumpkin, and nutmeg. After baking for about an hour, we have what look like pies. I suppose tomorrow we'll know if my plan was a success.
If you're reading this, I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving. I know a lot of people don't do the traditional stuff, and if you're one of them, I hope you find meaning and memory in the holiday in your own way.
As for me, I have a lot to be thankful for this year. First and foremost, I'm alive. There are any number of ways I could have died this year and somehow, none of them happened. This, truly, is a blessing. I am also thankful I managed not to get addicted to pain medication. Trust me, there were times when weening myself off my pain pills was very difficult. I did it though, and I am thankful for that. My friends and family supported me and kept me in good spirits during my hospital comings and goings. People clearly believe my life has value and meaning. I could go on and on about this, but I think you get the picture. I am in awe of this Thanksgiving because I get to participate in it. I am very thankful for that as well.
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