Thanksgiving

I was lucky enough to have some help this year in Thanksgiving cooking from two sources. First, my dear friend Dawn helped out with pie crusts. We got together at Dawn's place to make pie crusts on the Sunday night before Thanksgiving. Seriously, there is a ton of butter of pie crusts, which is awesome. Check out Dawn scraping a cutting board full of butter into the food processor. Those pie crusts eventually made their way into pumpkin pie and apple-cranberry pie. YUM!

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Mari came up from NYC. Before we started preparations for Thanksgiving, we opened up the Thanksgiving gifts our Mom had sent. Check out these snazzy aprons she made us!!! They are fall-themed and have amazing, large pockets on the front. I carried spices in the apron, a dish rag, my cell phone...These pictures were taken Thanksgiving morning. of course, we posed with our raw turkey just before she went into the oven. This year, we tried a little something different. The night before, we always marinate the turkey with an olive oil spice rub all over the turkey and into holes cut deep into the turkey. On Thanksgiving morning, we stuffed the turkey with Mami's standard Puerto Rican beef and pork stuffing then we rubbed the entire turkey with a compound butter with fresh thyme and fresh sage. Heck yeah!! Do you have any doubt that our Turkey turned out AMAZING? I know you don't, and yes, it was awesome. And our gravy kicked serious booty! We made a bunch of awesome sides too. Mari made a corn bread chestnut dressing and a spicy parmesan green bean and kale dish. We also made mashed potatoes, orange cranberry sauce, and homemade French bread. For appetizers, Mari made pitted dates stuffed with almonds and wrapped in crisp ybacon - DELISH!! We also had pigs in a blanket and guava paste with white cheese, a very typical Puerto Rican combinations, and yes, it's delicious, and yes, you've been missing out your whol life if you haven't had it.

But it wasn't all food. It was spectacular having the family here. It's the first time my brother and his family came to visit since I moved to Medford a few years ago. And definitely the first time that my siblings were here since Thanksgiving 2004 in Boston when the house was so crowded that Raul, may he rest in peace, had to sleep on an air bed in the kitchen!!! The girls are growing up so fast - Mylie is walking!! She is so precious, it was so lovely having a baby around. We played charades after dinner which is always a blast, and went shopping on Friday morning, which wasn't a doorbuster for us. All in all, an excellent holiday and great family visit!