Thanksgiving....PBG Style

Yesterday I gave you a little taste of our Thanksgiving Day feast.  It looked good, didn't it?  Everything was so good.  We started the afternoon with a little bit of wackiness.

Then it was time to get down to business.  We started with cheese and crackers.

Homemade (by me!) Artichoke dip.  This was a fan favourite.   I will be posting the recipe soon.

A  close up of the Artichoke dip.

Tipsy olives stuffed with blue cheese.

Even after all those snacks we still had room for dinner.  The highlight of the evening was the turkey.  My brother was in charge of the turkey and he took it very seriously. 

Here is the beautiful bird before.  Stephen actually took the time to brine the turkey in salt, sugar water a spices for 12 hours prior to cooking it.  The brining process makes the turkey so flavourful and juicy without adding much additional spices during the cooking process.



There was a slight malfunction with the meat thermometer so we cooked the bird for an extra 20 minutes just to be sure we didn't all end up with food poisoning.  Needless to say, the bird was cooked perfectly and we all survived.  And here it is in all it's golden and juicy glory.  It was so tasty. 

Our side dishes included garlic mashed potatos...

carrot and turnip mash...

peas...

When dinner was finally over it was my time to shine.  Dessert!  We decided to make fudgey brownies to have with ice cream and whipped topping.  These were not healthy.  These were not whole foods.  But, they were yummy.



My brother and I had a good time getting everything ready.  And my mom was so happy to have someone else doing most of the work this year. 

I often get told how much I look like my mom (and NOTHING like my brother).  Can't really argue with that too much after looking at pictures like this.  But, just to clarify I pay a lot of money for that hair colour, my mom comes by her's naturally. 

My mom is Dutch.  As part of her genetic makeup is the cleaning gene.  So, even though we told her to relax and take a break she insisted on following behind us trying to keep up with the mess.

In the end it was a fun day.  We had a good time cooking, a better time eating and a great time just being together.  My (almost) sister-in-law is a budding photographer and actually took most of the pictures throughout the day.  She did such a great job, didn't she?  Thanks Melanie!

How was your weekend?  The BF should be back this afternoon and I have an Ultimate Frisbee game at 6:30.  We are short on players again so it could be another rough game of wheezing and running.