Thanksgiving. I think it is my favorite holiday. It is a purposeful day of being thankful for all the blessings in my life. It is family, friends and a fantastic, favorite-foods feast! :) I think every day should be Thanksgiving - except for the food part or I'd be rather chubby! For me, the ‘thankful’ part is certainly not a one-day-a-year event. Choosing to be thankful every morning is a discipline that brings a much-needed balance in life. So often I forget to look around at the every-day blessings and become focused on the issues of life. Without the step-back perspective of looking at the whole picture of my life every morning, I can easily get off-track and overly consumed with whatever might be my challenge of the day (or week, or year, or life.) It takes discipline to choose a thankful heart attitude every morning because I don’t always feel so thankful. By choosing to be thankful for everything- the good and not so good, the result is so freeing, life-giving and truly empowering.
When this crisp, Fall air hits and the autumnal provisions of apples, pumpkins, squashes and turnips are plentiful, it is hard not to think about creating the traditional, heart-warming foods of Thanksgiving Day. This year we had a turkey ready and waiting in the freezer so we decided to go for it and have a pre-Thanksgiving dinner... (and also so that the poor turkey wouldn’t eventually turn into a ‘vintage turkey soup’... see this previous post on this subject!) We’ve done pre-Thanksgivings before and it is so much fun. We try out new recipes and just enjoy the fun of it all. Somehow, when you are preparing the long-awaited meal on the long-awaited day, there can be an underlying pressure not to make mistakes and ruin everyone’s turkey… :) On a pre-Thanksgiving day, there is no pressure - just enjoyment of the process.
It turned out wonderfully and was absolutely delicious. The highlight of the meal was a new dinner roll recipe. It was one of the most enjoyable yeast dough recipes I’ve ever made. They were absolutely pillowy-soft and delicious. Rolling out the circles was so easy. Even though the initial dough was sticky, once it rose for the first time, forming the 4 sections and rolling out each one to a circle for cutting was so smooth and actually fun. The dough was very easy to shape, roll and cut. I do recommend using a pizza cutter if you have one for cutting the triangles. This recipe makes a LOT of rolls. It seems like a double batch recipe. I’m going to try to halve it just to see if I can, and also see if I can par-bake the rolls for freezing and just finish them off in the oven right before serving – hopefully all without affecting the final product. Here is the Amazing Dinner Rolls recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
Here are some more pictures of the meal as well as some pics of the Fall yard.
Enjoy the remaining leaves... Thanksgiving Day will be here before you know it!