Over my 35 years of adult life, I have prepared many Thanksgiving dinners, traveled to spend Thanksgiving with family and enjoyed each of those experiences.  The last few years I have ordered the turkey and a few sides from a local Cajun restaurant, that offered Thanksgiving Day pick up. This year I have decided to take the prepared meal a step further and asked my husband to order most of the meal from another local establishment. I promise he ordered enough for leftovers because he loves Thanksgiving meal leftovers! The scary part of this plan is you must pick the food up the day before and reheat the meal. So, fingers crossed that turns out okay or there will be no main meal.

So, why am I not cooking a Thanksgiving meal this year? I do not want to wake up at 6 AM to start a full morning of preparation, cooking, and cleaning. I enjoy cooking but holiday meal preparation brings about another level of stress for me.  I want to enjoy the day with friends and family and not be stressed by cooking an entire meal. Football, bingo, Yahtzee, and other activities are so much more fun than cooking! Also, this way if the heat and serve is a flop I can blame the bad meal on the restaurant!

I am making a few of the family must haves since no restaurant in their right mind would have Watergate Salad as a side dish on their Thanksgiving menu. My family has had this every Thanksgiving since I was in third grade, and we used to spend everything Thanksgiving camping. Watergate salad was a make ahead dish that worked well for eating in the wilderness. Let me be clear, this was real tent camping with several other families and all the girls hated it. We girls spent most of our time in the heated bathroom facilities trying to stay warm.  This tradition of camping at Thanksgiving finally came to an end when the weather was so miserable on Thanksgiving Day that we all had to head home, but this 1970’s tradition of Watergate Salad on Thanksgiving is alive and well in my family.

A somewhat controversial Thanksgiving dish is cranberry sauce.  How many of you who are 50 plus years old remember the jellied cranberry sauce that slid right out of the chilled can, and had the rings from the can as a design pattern? Some people still believe that is the best form of cranberry sauce, other people believe there is no “good” cranberry sauce. In the 1980’s my family switched from the jelly form to making fresh cranberry sauce, which I must say I love.  My mother and husband require extra be made each year so that they can eat it the next day with cottage cheese. So, I will be making fresh cranberry sauce this year to keep them happy.

Finally, I am making some partially homemade desserts. I say partially, because unlike my mother I have never mastered the art of making a perfect pie crust.  I do not know why I find it so difficult, but I do not believe I have ever made a decent crust from scratch, so to eliminate that stress I use the great frozen pie crust available at my local HEB.  This year’s desserts include a Burbon Pecan Pie and individual blueberry pies with a crumble top and a side of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream. You cannot go wrong with Burbon and Blue Bell.

Whether you are cooking the entire meal, eating out, or heating a prepared meal, I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving Day that is filled with the people that make you happy and good food.