Our Thanksgiving weekend started a bit earlier than expected, because M. and I decided to keep the kids out of daycare today. When I picked up Finn yesterday afternoon, there was an unmistakable, icky odor permeating the air of his classroom. Turns out one of his friends had come down with some kind of stomach bug that had him losing it out of both ends.
Since my kids (especially Lucy) seem to come down with stomach bugs if you look at them cross eyed, we opted to try to save ourselves from misery and limit their exposure to the germs. M. and I both managed to do a little work, but kid wrangling (and a very, very necessary nap that I took) kept us from fitting in a full 8 hours of work today. Hence the early start to our holiday weekend.
On the plus side, I was able to start my Thanksgiving cooking a couple hours earlier than expected. Just to set the stage, we are hosting a low-key dinner tomorrow with one of my best friends and her husband. M. and I are cooking just about all of the dishes. Then Friday we all head to Baltimore for Thanksgiving #2 at a mutual friend's house, and I'm cooking a couple of dishes (an appetizer and a dessert) for that. Should be a fun, overly caloric weekend. I'd say relaxing, but the kids will be with us, so...
A rundown of the recipes I will be cooking over the next 24 hours:
Roasted Cauliflower
Israeli Couscous with Apples, Cranberries and Herbs (I'm making this with pine nuts instead of almonds)
Apple and Cheddar Scones
Sweet Potatoes with Pecans and Goat Cheese
Green beans with almonds and shallots (no recipe, just kind of winging this one)
Chile Citrus Turkey Breast (M. is in charge of this one, and he is roasting it rather than grilling)
We will also have olives, manchego cheese, crusty bread and Marcona almonds to nibble one, and a pumpkin pie that is, alas, not home-made (from Whole Foods). I'm not superwoman, after all...
For Friday's meal:
Crispy Butternut Wontons with Spicy Tomato Sauce
Peanutbutter Dark Chocolate Puddings
These recipes all swayed me with their lovely, lovely pictures on the web. I'm sure I won't be able to do them all justice, but nothing an extra glass of wine can't fix :-).
For now, I've just started with the wontons. The sauce and filling has been made, they will be stuffed and baked tomorrow. And with any luck, M. and I will also manage to cook all these other delightful (I hope!) dishes.
I hope you all have a wonderful start to the holiday season. And I say "start", but must confess that I have already been listening to the Holiday Traditions station on XM radio when I'm in M.'s car.
(As a side note, is anyone else irritated by the song "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus"? We have it on a kid's CD of Christmas music, in addition to all the adult versions that end up getting played. In my mind, the song is either encouraging a kid to realize that Santa is Daddy, or that infidelity is OK as long as Mom is cheating with Santa. Seems inappropriate to me, but perhaps I judge too harshly?)
And hopefully, at the end of this looooooonnnnnnggggg weekend, I will be thankful that the M family managed to stay stomach bug-free?
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I am interested to hear how the sweet potatoes worked out. I had that on my potential menu but Jon hates goat cheese and we eat sweet potatoes all the time.
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