I love the Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving SO much!
It’s a day of hopes, of dreams, of non-crazed prep and happy anticipation!
The delicious thing about Thanksgiving is that we can choose to prepare as much, or as little, as we want! We can purchase a pre-made dinner, go out for a lovely meal, visit friends (take a dish!) or cook up all the favorites at our own homes. We usually do the latter – it’s the cheapest, and given my food allergy (gluten) it’s the safest and most comfortable.
The Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving is the day that I dream that EVERYTHING I cook will turn out magnificently, perfectly seasoned and all cooking times will resolve themselves within 15 minutes of each other. A girl can dream!
This year we’re going with the stand alone turkey breast (it’s pretty much all we eat of the big bird) with GF stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, brussles sprouts, sweet potatoes and salad. We’ll have apple pie and pumpkin custard for dessert. We intend this meal to last us until D-Day.
I may even try my hand at macarons sometime this weekend to use up the egg whites leftover from the custard – I generally fail pretty miserably at them, though…
But this year we ask the question, “Why is this Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving different from all other Thanksgivings?”
And the answer is – because it’s the start of Hannukah!
I have my own problems with the holiday (I’m not a huge fan of the Maccabees, don’t get me started…), and in reality it’s a pretty minor holiday. But it’s a chance to light some candles and have some fun!
I may attempt latkes again. The last time I made them I almost burnt the kitchen down
(the fact I didn’t was a Hannukah miracle…)
But I think mostly we’ll just enjoy some family time, spin the dreidle, and maybe even play a rousing game of SORRY!
BUT WAIT!
This Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving is even MORE special!
Today I await the first shipment of ModeKnit Yarn! Today I will receive my first two base yarns from which we’ll be dyeing our initial batches. I’m so excited!
I checked the UPS site, and it’s “out for delivery” – yahoo!
Once I get the yarn, I’ll skein off a few sample mini skeins and test my dye formulas and methods. If all works as I hope (and as it has so far with my 100% SW merino sample yarn) I’ll get the rest of the yarn skeined up and ready to dye this Thursday when we’re using a local space for our experimentation!
I’m equal parts excitement, anticipation and fear. Thank heaven turkey and stuffing await me tomorrow!
I’ve had great luck with these macaron-like cookies from Dorie Greenspan: http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/old-fashioned-almond-cookies (and yes, they’re gluten-free!). I use purchased almond flour rather than grinding my own, because it’s easier and I’m lazy about cleaning the food processor! I’ve been known to double the recipe but use a 1 pound bag of nut flour and make up the “missing” 46 g with cocoa powder, and they work out fine.
Enjoy your holidays. Your meal sounds wonderful. Have you ever read the Oh She Glows blog? She’s vegan, but a lot of her recipes are gluten-free.
The yarn! That’s SO exciting!!!
Did your yarn arrive?