Eating Appreciation Day

Thanksgiving is not just my favorite holiday, it's the only holiday I like. At all. Turkey + stuffing + gravy = heaven. For me, it's the perfect meal. So much starch. Butter in EVERYTHING. I wish it was more complicated than that. But it's not.

Ever since the first time I had a less than satisfactory Thanksgiving meal I've wanted to make my own. The first time I did it was two years ago when, through a series of misunderstandings, Sara and I were left with nowhere to go on Thanksgiving. So, I made the whole meal for just the two of us, while we sat at home in sweat pants and listened to old episodes of This American Life on line. That was perhaps the best Thanksgiving I've ever had.

This year I went to my aunt's house and made all of the sides, plus two pumpkin pies. I didn't think to take pictures beforehand, but here are a few phone shots of the aftermath:

Sweet potatoes with marshmallows:

I really wish I'd taken a picture of this before all of the marshmallows melted. The marshmallows were all perfectly browned. It was ridiculous. Like in a goddamn magazine. It was disgusting how awesome it looked. I'm not even a big fan of sweet potatoes and I just kind of winged this. Boiled them and then mashed them with some butter (of course), cinnamon, brown sugar, and evaporated milk (mostly b/c we only had fat free milk and I had it left over from making pumpkin pie). I think you can do just about anything to sweet potatoes and everyone who likes them will love them.

Stuffing:

I love stuffing. It's probably my favorite part. This is a really basic stuffing that I made with veggie stock instead of chicken stock so that my vegetarian sister could get a little joy out of this bird-eater's holiday.

Cranberry Sauce:

Again, as simple as it gets. Cranberries, sugar, water. I don't know why anyone would ever buy this already made. It's even fun to make. A monkey could do this.

And finally, Pumpkin Pie:

I never liked pumpkin pie until one year when my mom made it from a cheese pumpkin. I think she only did this once, but it was so memorable that I always wanted to try it myself. I started doing it in like '03 or '04 and have done it every year since. I've had people say it was the best they've ever tasted. You'd think that would be the ultimate compliment, but it sounds so made up. Still, this pie RULES.