I decided I wanted to host Thanksgiving here to inaugurate the house with the biggest cooking day of the year. I invited pretty much everyone we could but in the end the only people that came were my parents. In hindsight it may have been better considering I have never cooked a Thanksgiving meal from start to finish. I got super overwhelmed a couple times but thanks to my mom I made it through.
My mom also made an AMAZING quilt/tablecloth that's reversible. I can celebrate Fall/Thanksgiving on one side and Christmas on the other. It's gorgeous and I love it.
I'm not going to lie. The food was REALLY good. All thanks to America's Test Kitchen and Martha Stewart. Without further adieu I give you, the goods.
We started with a butternut squash and apple soup and pumpkin maple salad while the turkey was finishing in the smoker.
I had made a ginger bread early in the day which served as another quasi appetizer. The recipe called for a half cup of minced ginger which was a little bit of a pain to get together, but it turned out delicious. The cranberry/pear sauce was unbelievable. I ate it on toast for breakfast the next day. I'll be making that again at Christmas, although I recommend cutting up the pears into smaller pieces than the recipe calls for.





