an early thanksgiving feast.

it is 5:43 PM monday night.  guess what? i am still full. i don’t know how that is humanly possible, but i am.  the only things that have entered my mouth today (TWSS) are a few bites of an egg scramble, 1 slice of whole wheat toast and an apple. oh, and some wasabi peas.  i am still so, so full from yesterday’s feast!!

how about i take it from the top?  the top of sunday, that is. sure, ok.

sunday morning i woke up bright and early at 8 AM and then went back to bed until 11.  after some house cleaning and coffee drinking, marshall and i decided to go to einsteins.. after all, it was my free day (which, on body for life, is a day off from exercise & by-the-book clean eating).

i got an asiago bagel, toasted, with sun dried tomato cream cheese..

is it just me or do you guys always find that eintsteins puts WAY too much cream cheese on their bagels? i usually ask for just a skiff but i forgot this time. i ended up scraping it all off into a pile on the side…

anyway, snowboarding did not happen yesterday because, well, the lack of snow is making me think the gasolina it takes to drive to the resort is just not worth it. side note: it finally DID snow so i will be going up thursday, friday, saturday, sunday.. :D

so i think i mentioned it, yesterday my family celebrated thanksgiving because it was the only time we could ALL be together (minus my sister & her fam in cali).. so we celebrated the holiday early and my mom, dad, grandma, marshall & i will be celebrating it AGAIN on thursday.. just not quite as extravagant as yesterday was.

i got to mi madre’s around 2:30 and started cooking up a storm!!

aren’t we so adorable in our aprons??

the next 3 hours were basically non stop cooking. i, of course, was in heaven.  my mom and sister and sister in law all helped and it was so much fun!!

momma b stayed hydrated with a mason jar of grape juice as we cooked

on the menu?

*i have linked to the recipes if they were available online!*

shredded roasted brussels sprouts with toasted almonds & parmesan

sorry about the smear. i must have had a smudge on my lens!

these were good, but not as great as i had hoped they would be. i even quadrupled (yes, you read that right) the amount of balsamic.. still, not the greatest. BUT, yummy still.

deviled eggs

for my deviled eggs i simply mix the yolks with a little bit of each: mayo, mustard, salt & pepper. sprinkle with paprika. my mom got me that cute orange deviled egg pan when she was on a trip somewhere! i think new mexico?

pear & gorgonzola green salad with homemade pear vinaigrette

this salad was SUCH a winner! one that i will make again and again.  my sister in law lindsay did a fantastic job at whipping up the vinaigrette.  the only thing i left out of the salad was the hazelnuts, i didn’t have any on hand.

i loved this recipe and i found it by googling “green salad with pear”~turns out the website the recipe is on has a ton of delicious looking recipes. can’t wait to try some out!

savory mushroom bread pudding

pre-baked:

 

post-baked:

ever since seeing angharad make this on her blog i have been wanting to whip it up!  umm. yum. it was a hit! the only problem was it made quite a bit, and since we had SO many dishes.. i wish i had halved the recipe.  also, it was baking at my sister’s house and so i wasn’t there to keep an eye on it. the top got a tad toasty but it was still fantastic once i dug below the charred layer ;)

sweet potato parmesan & goat cheese galette

 

pre-baked~

post-baked~ 

i can’t decide if my favorite dish was this one or the salad.  it was incredible! everyone else loved it too.  it was very simple to make, it was just thiin layers of sweet potatoes layered with parmesan and goat cheese.  the flavors all combined fabulously.  definitely one for the books.

cauliflower & broccoli with a gruyere, emmental & swiss cheese sauce

this was simple yet sophisticated.  originally, i was going to make a broccoli & gruyere gratin that i saw in real simple magazine, but we were short on time and oven space so we ended up just steaming the veggies and melting the cheeses over top.  easy and elegant!

caramelized onions with thyme

i pulled this recipe from real simple magazine.  in addition to the onions & thyme, the recipe called for white wine, white wine vinegar and salt & pepper.  it was really good on top of the turkey!

cranberry apple sauce

look at that color!  this was another recipe from real simple magazine.  and it was just that: real simple.  my mom was in charge of this one and she did a great job.  it was 1 lb cranberries, 1 cup apple cider, 1/3 cup granulated sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar.  sooo much better than the canned stuff!

well there you have it, the eight dishes i planned.  in addition to these, my mom made regular mashed potatoes & gravy, the absolute BEST stuffing in the world (my favorite part of thanksgiving, hands down), fruit salad (as per marshall’s request) and a glorious 22 lb turkey!!

my sister also made some really cute knot rolls which were delicious.

time to feast!!

once we sat down to eat, i was exhausted.. and actually not as hungry as i wanted to be.  with all the running around, tasting, bites here and there.. i just lost my appetite! but, of course, that did not stop me from eating!! my plate~

i ate most of what you see and went back for more stuffing ;)

i am not quite sure how i managed to eat pumpkin pie only a short time after dinner.. but i did.. and it was fabulous.  thanksgiving is not thanksgiving without pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream (with lots of vanilla extract)!!  can you believe one of my best friends hates both pumpkin pie AND whipped cream? i know, she’s clinically insane.

the evening was spent hanging out together and just enjoying the company of our fam all together.  PLUS it was snowing! glorious, glorious snowwwww :)

we had a few rousing rounds of boggle and i won.. again.. haha. maybe one day someone will dominate me at the word game.  but the two things i know best are cooking and word games!  well, and workouts.. but that was not on yesterday’s agenda.

i am happy to report that my full body workout i did saturday left me with some killer DOMS yesterday. 

well i am not even going to recap today~i already told you i have not eaten much as i had no appetite!  i just got home from the gym where i busted out 20 minutes of HIIT on the treadmill, 5 minutes of high resistance on the crosstrainer elliptical & 10 minutes of ab work… gotta whittle my middle!!

i am going to spend the rest of the night unpacking (yes, MORE unpacking!) and catching up on my reader and hopefully hanging some artwork/photos on my bare walls. once i am all done with my room i will show it to you guys! maybe i could do a video tour of my house?

anyway, hope you all had a great monday. mine was not that great, in case you are wondering..  i am a tad irritated.  there was a snow storm and i slid/crashed into a retaining wall and my car’s front bumper is all sorts of scratched up. i am ok though!  i just don’t want to dwell on it so i didn’t write about it but i did want to mention it!

hope everyone has a short work and school week this week! i know i am excited about tomorrow being the second to last day of my work week!

Qs~

1. hands down, what is your favorite dish (not dessert) to eat on thanksgiving? like i said up there, my favorite is my mom’s stuffing. it is out of this world delicious! but i think the sweet potato galette was second place this year…

2. favorite kind of pie? i may have asked this one before, but oh well. fresh peach pie with homemade whipped cream is mine. but daaang.. pumpkin pie is so good!

xo. janetha b.