Reducing Stress at Thanksgiving

 First of all I have to say thank you to all of my readers who have stuck with me despite the fact that my posts have been very sporadic. Life has been crazy. Having three kids has thrown me for a loop and of course life had several curve balls on top of it. Blogging was pushed to the back burner, but I'm finally feeling a little more on top of things. This week I went to a RS meeting on getting organized and I thought I would share some of the things that I learned. (And then I can have all the info here and toss the handouts so they aren't cluttering my house.)
 Here are some suggestions they gave to make the big Thanksgiving meal go a little smoother and more enjoyable.

• Plan the meal in advance, divide up assignments between guests that are coming. Just because you are hosting the party doesn't mean that you need to stress over everything. Assign someone to bring snacks.
• 2 weeks ahead of time- order a turkey (hope you've done that already)
• 1 week before- clean out the fridge, use up any leftovers and mostly empty bottles of condiments
• 3-4 days ahead- if using a frozen turkey, put in the fridge to thaw (1 day for every 4-5 pounds)
• 2 days ahead- make pie dough and refrigerate, toast bread for stuffing (if you're not just using Stove Top, ;) ) and pecans for pie.
• The day before- trim and peel vegetables, caramelize onions and make pies
• The morning of- prepare potatoes and refrigerate, make sure everyone has breakfast so they're not irritable all day
• 3 & 1/2 hours before- bring turkey to room temperature, start roasting, make glaze
• 2 hours before- cook side dishes, put egg beaters & a bowl in the fridge so they can fluff up whipping cream faster
• 30 minutes before- while turkey and potatoes are cooling, cook stuffing and make gravy
• After the meal- get everyone involved in putting away and cleaning up.

I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!

Food Storage Ingredients That Made Their Way Into Our Turkey Day

Sometimes I hear people say that using your food storage is difficult, time-consuming and unrealistic. I beg to differ. Having the following items on hand makes my holiday that much easier. Plus when I snag these items when they are really cheap it saves me money, too. Obviously these are not the only things that we are eating, but combined with fresh ingredients, once again my food storage has reduced the stress in my life.

1. Evaporated milk- in the mashed potatoes
2. Canned potatoes- Precooked, and easy to mash, plus they taste much better than potato flakes
3. Apple pie filling
4. Stuffing- I have many talents, making stuffing from scratch is not one of them.
5. Bottled gravy- ditto
6. Cranberry sauce
7. Peanut butter- I make a fabulous peanut butter pie that I serve with hot fudge, I'll have to put the recipe up here sometime.
8. Green beans- Green bean casserole, of course.
9. Cream of mushroom soup- ditto
10. Sliced almonds and french onions- ditto
11. Canned crushed pineapple- Dumped it on the ham and let it roast.
12. Canned pumpkin- in the cheesecake 
13. And last night I am made Taco Soup using black beans, kidney beans, canned tomatoes, chicken broth, canned chiles, canned corn, and dried carrots. It's fast, delicious, warm and the kind of meal that I feel like preparing after I've spent all day cooking.

 Does anyone out there have any great holiday recipes that include your food storage?

Things I am Grateful for Today

Things I am grateful for today, in no particular order:

1. My husband. He's handsome, brilliant and my best friend. He balances and supports me in so many ways. I am so glad to have him.

 2. Thing One- She's sweet, sassy and often downright goofy. She brings so much laughter to our home.

3. Thing Two- I love, love, love that multiples times everyday he says in his sweet, yet stern voice "I need to give you a kiss", then plants one on my cheek. And of course I have to steal a few from his sweet soft cheeks myself.

4. Lotion- To say that I wash my hands a lot would be an understatement. At least a few dozen times everyday. Good lotion is important, and it's nice that is smells good too.
5. My neighbors- They are amazing. I could be happy living next to, across the street from and around the corner from them for the rest of my life.

6. My food storage- I could probably go on for years about the ways food storage has blessed my life and I probably will.
7. Online shopping- Black Friday, meh.  I don't like cold. I don't like crowds. I don't like stupid or inconsiderate people. Cyber Monday in my pajamas is what I am looking forward to.
8. Christmas decorations- Looking forward to pulling mine out this week.
9. Fresh produce- So satisfying and good for you too.

10. Cheesecake Factory Pumpkin Cheesecake- And weather permitting it should arrive at my house with my in-laws this afternoon.
11. My In-Laws- And not just because my mother-in-law has some made cheesecake making skills. Many people have "in-law issues". I don't, really. They're fantastic. They're fun to be with and involved, without being "too involved".

12. My health- My body's not perfect by anyone's definition, but for the most part I am healthy. When I see people with real health problems, it makes me that much more grateful for how well my body functions. I remember once when I was in nursing school I spent a little time with a woman with ALS. Despite her problems had a phenomenally long list of things that she was grateful for.
13. Mint hot chocolate- It makes me happy.
14. Breakfast- It really helps the day go better
15. My dishwasher- I have experienced life without a dishwasher, then with a dishwasher that flooded my kitchen, followed by a dishwasher that spewed filth into my sink and lastly a nice one that is shiny and does a descent job considering our really hard water. I think I'll keep it.
16. For all of those people who do the jobs that I have no interest in doing, that make it possible for me to do mine- unit manager, nursing administrator, ER doc, food services, pharmacist, house keeping, medication manufacturer, security, the night shift, I could keep going.
17. My parents- So many lessons learned.

18. Fireball- My husband, siblings and close friends bond by playing catch with a ball that they have started on fire. Mike, Cait we totally need to play when we come up next month. It's going to be awesome.

19. My job- So glad to have employment in these times.
20. Being in the right place at the right time- Last week I was floated to Mother/Baby. While I was taking my break someone was cleaning out the break room. She almost threw out two good sized pads of coupons for $5 off Nutramigen. 1-2 day old infants almost never go home with Nutramigen, but our pediatric patients do fairly often, and I'm certain that their moms will be grateful for those coupons because that stuff is pricey.
21. Coupons- They help me build my food storage for less.

22. Ordinary average good people- They're everywhere and I'm so glad every time I encounter them.
23. Modern medicine- Oh wow we have come a long way.
24. My crock pot- It can't count the times it has made my life easier.
25. St George weather- no blizzard here!

Thanksgiving Helps

I think I'm almost ready for Thanksgiving. In the past week I finally took down all of the Halloween decorations, bought a ham, found a Thanksgiving tablecloth on clearance for $1.75 (Wahoo!), and have been clearing space in my fridge to make room for pie. Today I'm going to rent a carpet cleaner (My carpet it looong over-due) as well as a couple of last minute produce items.  And I think that's it. Probably forgetting something. In the interest of not stressing about things that don't matter that much, I decided that I am not cooking a turkey. There will only be 6 adults and most of my family prefers ham anyway. (There will be a small turkey breast.) And ham can be cooked in my crock-pot!
In my internet searching I have found the following ideas that can help you make a great Thanksgiving meal.

• How to Slow Roast a Turkey in a Paper Bag- Someday I am going to try this.
• How to Carve a Thanksgiving Turkey- They make it look easy enough I feel like I could do it.
• How to Make Perfect Gravy-I'm going to try this. Making gravy is not a talent that I posses.
• Tropical Sweet Potato Casserole- This is my sweet potato recipe that turned out pretty well.
• Printable Thanksgiving Party Favor

And here's the post I wrote for Thanksgiving last year.

10 Tactics for a Cheaper and Saner Thanksgiving

I adapted this list from one I saw posted at The Simple Dollar.com. He has some good ideas for simplifying your holiday
"Quite often, I’ll see people spend exorbitant amounts of money on lavish Thanksgiving spreads. While I completely understand the reason for doing this – often, it’s the one time in the year that we can gather around one table with a lot of people we love – there’s still a lot of simple things we can do to reduce the financial outlay and the stress of the meal without reducing the quality of the day in any way (and often improving it). Here are ten ways to do just that.
Cook and slice the turkey on Tuesday. What? No beautiful turkey on the table? Whatever will we do? In truth, though, the turkey on the table during Thanksgiving dinner often results in lots of problems: it keeps someone away from the meal because they’re carving the bird, the bird is often dry because it hasn’t had a lot of time to rest, and the finished bird often arrives later than expected, delaying the whole meal and often reducing the quality of the other food. Solve all of these problems by cooking the bird on Tuesday or Wednesday, slicing it at your own pace, then putting all of the meat on a platter along with all of the juice and a few pats of butter. Cover the serving platter and put it in the fridge, then just turn on the oven (or the electric roaster) on Thanksgiving to thoroughly warm the meat.
Use nature for your decorations. During the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, there are thousands of colorful leaves all over the place, free for the taking. Be picky – go outside and look for some nice, clean, colorful leaves. All you need is a plain tablecloth and a row of colorful leaves sprinkled down the middle to create a very festive setting.
Get the slow cooker into the act. Many Thanksgiving side dishes can easily be prepared in a slow cooker. Slow cookers consume less energy and quite often can be used in a “fix-it-and-forget-it” mindset. It’s the perfect tool to make cranberry sauce, for example.
Be creative with your Thanksgiving dinner leftovers. By the third day, turkey sandwiches start to get tired. Instead of allowing that to happen, share some of your extra food with people in need (for example, make a couple plates of food for shut-ins you know and deliver the plates) or make something interesting, like kugel or tetrazzini, out of the leftovers.
Round up when you estimate. I’ve been to two different Thanksgiving dinners in the past three years where there was just barely enough food to make ends meet for the number of guests (to put it politely). People showed up bringing unexpected dining companions and estimates for how much each person would eat were strangely low. Don’t fall into that trap. Estimate high, but estimate realistic. After all, you can always eat leftovers, but you can’t undo unhappy guests.
Don’t be afraid of potlucking it. Ask your guests to bring a dish or two with them so that you can focus your time, energy, and money on a few key dishes. Most people are quite willing to help (provided, of course, that they’re not coming from out of town).
Save the bones. Seriously. Put the entire carcass in a large Ziploc bag and save the bones and small pieces of meat for a day or two. Then, take all of the leftover vegetables (potatoes, corn, non-glazed carrots, etc.) and the carcass, stick them all in a crock pot, then add enough water to just cover the bones. Turn it on low overnight (this is perfect to do on Saturday evening after Thanksgiving). Then, in the morning, save the liquid. What will you do with this delicious turkey broth? Freeze it (along with a pound or two of leftover diced turkey meat). Then, in a few weeks, use it as the base for an amazing soup – just add vegetables and/or dumplings to the stock and the turkey (along with perhaps a bit of water to thin it).
Have appetizers. Inexpensive appetizers – like a selection of vegetables – helps people keep the edge off of their appetites and keeps them from over-eating during the main meal. Not only does this make the overall meal more healthy, it often makes it cheaper, since a vegetable tray can be really inexpensive. Much like the turkey, this can also be assembled the day before.
Save your recyclable containers for leftovers. Instead of just tossing large containers of items like margarine or whipped topping, save the containers. Then, on Thanksgiving, fill the containers with leftovers and give them to your guests. There’s no responsibility at all for them to return the container and it gets an extra use out of the items that would normally be tossed. "

Take time to remember what the holiday is all about Make sure you take a few minutes from all the preperation and hostessing to remember why we celebrate this holiday. Don't get too stressed out. This holiday wasn't created to make your life complicated, frantic and expensive, although it can feel that way. Thanksgiving is about being thankful for our blessings, for our families, friends, food to eat and the freedoms that we enjoy. Be thankful for what you have and for this occasion and don't get too anxious if things aren't perfect.