Early T-Day Lunch

My in-laws are were in town. It's never worked out that they're here during Thanksgiving. But this year, they were here the weekend before so why not have turkey dinner one week early? Uh, hello... Genius!

Usually, Thanksgiving and other big holidays are spent with my Mom's side of the family, though sometimes we'll have my Dad's side too. It's typically at least 15 people, if not 20+. And we're growing too, now that my generation has significant others and babies too.

It was a little odd that we all fit around the table and it was just 6 adults and Mr A, since the baby was sleeping. But the food was still fantastic and it was still all about family. We had turkey, ham, zucchini, butternut squash, and dressing. Ahhh... So yummy! And did I mention we ate at 1pm? Again, genius. Because it was lunch time, I don't think I over ate. I took a nice post turkey nap afterwards and then it was time for dinner (leftovers of course).

Other genius moments of the day:

• Turkey cooked in an oven bag, resulting in a super moist turkey.  I'm definitely gonna do this next time.
• A homemade tart cherry pie - OMG, to die for! Canned cherry pie filling has always had a metallic taste to me, but not this bad boy!
• Butternut squash - I've never cooked this in my life, but we had them oven roasted with a little salt and butter. Yum.
• Dressing - What is the difference between dressing and stuffing? My MIL makes fantastic dressing with homemade cornbread, onions, celery, cream of mushroom, and sage.  Usually, she puts an egg in there too, but this time, she left it out because of Mr A's egg allergy.  I believe the egg is a binding agent but it was fine without.  In fact, I think I liked it better without because it was less mushy.  Well, the dressing is all gone now, mostly in my tummy.

Because we had turkey and ham this past weekend, we decided to forgo another turkey dinner today.  It was kind of nice, just being home, just another day.

Happy Thanksgiving!