Thanksgiving on a Soft Food Diet

Happy Thanksgiving!!  It was a quiet Thanksgiving this year, but we enjoyed the day.  We are healthy and enjoying the retired life.  We indeed have much to be thankful for. 

One of the local tv personalities  talked about Thanksgiving in terms of family, food, and football, which is probably a pretty good description.

I will start with food.  This is not necessarily the most important component of turkey day, but was a bit different this year since the Frog is still on a pureed or soft food diet.  Family members expressed some concern about that, but I am here to report that we did not starve.  The Frog got a turkey breast from Honey Baked Ham.  Although we had bought many hams from them over the years, this was our first experience with one of their turkey products.  It is fully cooked and pre-sliced, making it perfect for grinding in the food processor.  I also made dressing, although with the more ground up bread rather than cubes.  I made my usual (at least in the past few years) faux mashed potatoes, i.e. pureed cauliflower.  These all seemed fine when smothered in gravy.  That and some pureed broccoli, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie made it a more or less traditional Thanksgiving day feast.  It seems weird to not have the remains of our usual 20 lb pterodactyl in the fridge, but we still have plenty of leftovers.  I was even able to sneak onto my plate some cherry tomatoes which had been picked earlier in the day from the garden.

Without the long roasting time for the turkey in the oven, I decided to take several short cuts this year.  The dressing was assembled the day before, then baked in the oven Thursday morning.  The faux potatoes (pureed cauliflower) and the pureed broccoli were made the day before and reheated in the microwave.  I did not make home made cranberry sauce this year, but got the jellied kind in a can for the Frog (I did not know how to make this kind which had no pieces to chew) and the full berries kind in the can for me.  That left only making the gravy and grinding the turkey as actual preparation before dinner. 

As you can also see from the pictures, I also cheated and did not use the good china or the good silver so that more of the dishes could go into the dishwasher. 

Family, of course, is the most important part of Thanksgiving.  We weren't with them in person this year, but we were able to share with them electronically during the weekend and thought of all of them fondly during dinner.  Thanksgiving, after all is the ultimate throwback Thursday.

The Thanksgiving dinner spread.

There were handmade items on the table from several different Gwen periods:  the Thanksgiving runner, hotpads, and turkey pine cones.  I also always think of Paul and Gwen when I have the gravy boat on the table. 

The white linen tablecloth was originally my mother-in-law's, part of her wedding gifts I think, but what we have been using for years.  The small relish dish is what I always remember from Thanksgiving when I was growing up.  I wish I knew a more complete story about the history of this dish, but it has been at many Thanksgiving dinners over the years both when I was growing up and then on our table.

Finally there is football.  Thanks especially to Zeke and Dak, it is really exciting watching the Dallas Cowboys this year.  However, watching the Cowboys on Thanksgiving in our family goes back considerably before our move to Texas.  I don't have any pictures of us watching the Cowboys this year, but this is a picture at Mom's of Thanksgiving 1980. 

Unless I am seeing things, I think it is the Dallas Cowboys original #88, Drew Pearson, on the TV scre

Well, that is about it from here.  I feel most thankful and blessed.  From here in Texas to y'all, Happy Thanksgiving.