The Thanksgiving Week

It’s Monday, whew! Last week was a big one, very long, too full. Hubbie’s Dad arrived on Wednesday, early afternoon. I had a migraine dual-session on Monday to Tuesday, and had a lot of work (cooking) to do and was hoping it would all work out. It did, but was very exhausting for me.

On Tuesday I made bread to use for my thanksgiving stuffing, white spelt and whole grain spelt loaves. I didn’t get anything else done. Hubby brought home the Turkeys that day too.

On Wednesday I made pie crusts and put together my scruptious version of the Nourishing Traditions Pumpkin recipe. I made 2 pies. They turned out wonderfully.

On Thursday I diced all the veggy stuff for my stuffing, and got that into butter in a large pan and cooked it until soft (Celery, Onion, Sage.) I mixed that then with raisins, chopped apple, chopped walnuts, and chicken stock — and then mixed it all into the cubed bread (which I made on Tuesday, cubed on Wednesday, and then dried out.)

I stuffed one turkey and into the oven it went for a few hours. The rest of the stuffing went into a casserole dish and was baked with foil over it for 30 or more minutes.

I also made homemade cranberry sauce. I saw a couple of shows on FoodTV this past month where different recipes were used for making something saucy with cranberries, so I made up my own way: I had about 2 cups of very nice cranberries (organic found at WholeFoods) and I put the juice of one red naval orange (organic) into the pan with the cranberries, and 1/4 cup of Rapadura, one chopped up apple, and zest from the orange. I added some water later. I let it cook and cook until it was the texture I wanted. It was very good. Zippy — tangy and sweet but tartier than sweet, the best sort of taste. (I had never made cranberry anything before, so this was a great success!)

I also made Creamed Peas with onions, I had little onions, not pearl, and ended up slicing them and putting them with the frozen peas in a pan as they cooked. I made a traditional white sauce and seasoned it nicely, put the peas/onions into a casserole and gently stirred in the white sauce, then put it into the oven for 20-30 minutes.

As well I made Glorified Cauliflower (a whole large head, cooked, then topped with cheddar cheese sauce, which is pretty much a traditional white sauce with cheese added); mashed potatoes and gravy.

I made my version of green bean casserole, utilizing a traditional white sauce with chicken flavoring (using chicken base, a paste) and Durkee fried onions with whole green beans, that were frozen then cooked, then added the sauce and onions to them in a casserole and baked, then put more onions on top at the end for 5 more minutes in the oven.

Lastly I had made dough for rolls (white spelt), and had V. help me make 12 cloverleaf rolls, and I twisted the remainder to make 12 more of a strange looking variety.

I think that’s all. It was a load of work. Hubby helped a lot cleaning up as I needed, and tending things when I asked so I could lay down a bit.

I made sweetened whip cream later on to top the pumpkin pie, which was a nice ending for Thanksgiving.

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On Friday Hubby and I went out alone, grandpa stayed with the children at home. We went to see Casino Royale, then got a few things for V’s birthday that we hadn’t gotten beforehand. We also went into a Mother Maternity store, and I found a couple of things, and Hubby paid, but the sales girl kept offering this and that info and packages of samples and signup for this and that … and it took a long time, and then diapers came up as a subject, so hubby started talking about our cloth diapering experiences and I got pulled into the conversation and so it took even longer to get out of there … I rested most of the rest of the day (I was worn out!)

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Saturday was V’s 8th birthday. We picked up the cake we’d ordered from a local bakery and got her a helium balloon (a translucent shaped butterfly, very pretty) and also a small boquet of roses (a very pretty orange colour) which was 10 roses, just right for an 8-year-old girl. I then rested/wrapped V’s presents.

We had decided to have spaghetti for dinner (V. request) so I made fresh Kamut pasta, and made my usual sauce with ground meat, onion, garlic, Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil, organic canned tomatoes, and dried basil, oregano, parsley, sea salt. The pasta was a lot of work, but worth it.

I also made two skinny-ish french breads out of white spelt, water, sea salt, yeast.

We had present opening time, then dinner, and a bit later cake time.

I started feeling a migraine come on in the early-mid afternoon. We all went right then to Target so V. could get something with the money she got from grandpa. I took something for the migraine before we left, and that helped. Later though, during dinner, I had the pain come back. I took something again, but it didn’t help. I went to bed after cake time. I struggled with the pain for several hours. I then spent the next day, Sunday, in bed resting from all the exhausting activities and the migraine topping it off. I leisured in bed this morning then as well.

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I’m 10 1/2 weeks along in my pregnancy now. I’m just so tired still, and have hardly any energy. If I do feel some energy, it gets used up so very quickly. It’s just so nice to lay down and read and just lay down. Eventually I won’t be as tired, I sure hope!

It’s tiring to type, hence my seldom posting of late.