Thanksgiving Times Two

I love Thanksgiving. We had 10 this year, including us. All family-less Slappers (our dodgeball team), the teacher of my dodgeball class and his girlfriend. We ate turkey, stuffing, corn casserole, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, tortilla soup, green beans, cranberry sauce and gravy. Yum. I even got to pair champagne with the soup and wine with dinner. Plus cosmopolitan champagne cocktails for appetizers. Very tasty and a nice change from mimosas. Since Brian gave me that 50 pound sack of walnuts, I tried to include them as much as possible. Marne made an awesome walnut pie, I added walnuts to the stuffing (eh, so-so), and infused some vodka. Note: walnuts make vodka smell even more like jet fuel. So instead of serving it straight, I made chocolate-walnut martinis for dessert. Walnut vodka and godiva liquor with a touch of cream, shaken over ice. Much tastier. Ken made two gorgeous pies, an apple and a pumpkin. We had a blast.

Turkeys were $4.50 at the store. Yes, for a whole 18.8 lb turkey. So I bought two and cooked the other on Sunday night for the football game. Same slapper crew for dinner. Used the dark meat for a thai turkey curry over rice and sliced up the breast for eating straight with gravy and a mashed potato dish that I read about in the Oregonian (mashed potatoes on bottom of a casserole dish, layered with sauteed mushrooms and carmelized onions, and topped with mashed potatoes again -- put under the broiler for crunch). Yum, but I am now officially sick of turkey. I am still happily eating stuffing and corn pudding, though.