Thanksgiving Dinner in Churchville

Due to the weather, we decided to stay on the sunny side of the mountains this year and not risk getting caught in the mountain passes. So yesterday we went shopping for Thanksgiving fixins, and today we made the meal together. We are simple people with simple tastes, so it was not a terrible ordeal.

The turkey was a very small Jennie-O Oven Ready Boneless Turkey Breast. It was about as simple as possible. You take the frozen turkey out of the outer package, remove the gravy pack to thaw, and stick the turkey in the oven. A couple hours later, you check and the little red button has popped up, and you're done. It was easy to carve, and we have a little bit of leftovers. The gravy just needed to be heated up after the turkey came out of the oven and was resting.

Mashed potatoes are the really good powdered stuff we get at Costco. The stuffing was Safeway store brand cornbread stuffing. Yams, which I like but Eric doesn't, were just canned yams. Frozen green beans from Costco filled out the rest of the plate.

Of course, the gem of the meal (after the turkey) is the traditional Angel Biscuits, made by my mother every Thanksgiving, and totally addictive to my family. I've never made them solo before, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to try them. But familial encouragement on Facebook convinced me to give it a shot, and this morning, long before we did anything else, I made the dough so it would have time to rest and rise before we cooked it. The dough came together easier than I expected, and before we even started cooking the whole kitchen had a wonderful biscuit smell. After we put the turkey in the oven, we waited an hour and a half and rolled out the dough. Eric helped me dip the cut biscuits in melted butter and fill the pan. And the moment the turkey came out of the oven, the biscuits went in.

Our timing turned out to be pretty good. We actually laid out a plan of action before we put the turkey in, so we knew where and when each dish had to be cooked. It was actually one of the easiest meals we've done in ages. We ended up serving cafeteria-style, which only made sense. And this is the final result:

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Hope you had a good one.