Hooray for Leftovers

Here I am, trying to keep myself honest by keeping a record about sticking to my promise-to-self re: building meals using the food I have on hand, and after just 5 days, I'm already a day behind. I'm blaming Thanksgiving. Even though I did not host a big dinner, I contributed to one, so there was still shopping and cooking to be done and it does take time to get it right. That's my excuse for the blip in my food diary.

So, here's the scoop on Thursday, November 22, Thanksgiving Day: We've shared Thanksgiving dinner with the same family of friends for many years. We have a set menu that we must stick to, or our kids will mutiny. We can always add a new dish if we want, but it can't replace anything on the standard menu. The must-haves that are my responsibility are a sweet potato casserole (whipped potatoes with crushed pineapple topped with a to-die-for brown sugar and pecan confection), a variety of olives and pickles, and the cranberry relish, of which I make about a gallon. The cranberry relish is ground raw berries, unpared apples, oranges (with skins) and pecans....and lots of sugar. When my daughter was in pre-school, the teacher prepared a simple Thanksgiving meal and the parents were invited to share it with the class. The cranberry recipe came from that teacher. It is our very favorite! This year I also made the yellow squash casserole mentioned in an earlier post. Oh, and let's not forget the wine...and plenty of it.

So, what came off the shelf and out of the fridge in the making of the feast? One 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, 2 sticks of butter, 2 eggs, green olives, pickled okra, candied dill pickles and Wickles spicy pickles.

Today, nothing came off the shelves because there were enough leftovers for a generous meal--the traditional Thanksgiving dinner is my husband's all-time fav. He'd be happy to have it about once a month and he loves leftovers. So, I got a break from cooking. Although I took just 3 side dishes to our repast, they were made in great volume. That way I share my leftovers and we are sent home with containers of food prepared by others. As a result, we all end up with the makings of a complete meal for a second day. Sweet!

Tomorrow, it's back to cooking!