Monthly Musings: Thanksgiving Prep (Recap!)

It's already time for "Monthly Musings" with Holly at Pink Lady and Patty at Good, Better, Best. For the majority of my readers, it's a Thanksgiving Prep post, but for me (and anyone else who lives in Canada), it's a recap post as we celebrated Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October. Well, at least, we were supposed to but more on that in a bit...

1) What are your Thanksgiving plans?

Well, since we already had Thanksgiving, I will share what we did. We always like to go for a walk but two things interfered with our "regular" Thanksgiving plans. The first thing was the weather. It rained through most of our Thanksgiving weekend. There were very few moments of non-rainy weather so we ended up staying inside and doing a lot of organizing and cleaning in our basement.

The second thing which really shaped our Thanksgiving weekend was the Hamas attack in Israel and the subsequent Israeli response in Gaza. As I mentioned in my post this past Tuesday, Dave is on the board of the synagogue, and we are without a rabbi right now, so Dave had about six hours of meetings throughout the weekend, many of which were unanticipated, as well as all the emotions which this all brought on.

So yes, our Thanksgiving looked very different this year.

We ended up having our "Thanksgiving dinner" with my parents just last week, on an evening when we were all home and had no plans and it was quite lovely.

2) Favourite Thanksgiving dish? Please share recipe.

We don't do a traditional meal so over the past number of years we've come up with our own menu. One of the things I really love is Hasselback potatoes. There are many recipes for these potatoes on the internet. We slice them thinly, slather a lot of butter on, bake them, and then cover them with cheddar or mozarella cheese. And they are delicious!

Another thing I really love around Thanksgiving time is potatoes mashed with celeriac. We often get celeriac in our CSA so I just cut it up, boil it with the potatoes, and mash them all together. So good!

3) Best food prep tips?

Well, this year I got my parents to make our Thanksgiving dinner so that was awesome! (Don't you love how all my food prep tips are "get someone else to cook"!?!?!?!)

4) Favourite Thanksgiving traditions?

Normally, I love going for a walk to enjoy the fall colours. They can be quite amazing around Thanksgiving weekend and I just love getting out to see them. This year, however, we had too much rain so we still haven't gone on a good fall colour walk.

Left: early fall colour on my favourite path; right: an incredible tree I saw while picking up our CSA the other day

5) Turkey? Ham? Other? Both?

For the past number of years we've done sauteed shrimp and I highly recommend that. We sautee them in butter, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and a little Tabasco and they are delicious!!!

6) Apple pie? Pumpkin pie?

If I have to choose, I'd go for apple pie. This year, we walked to our favourite ice cream shop after our dinner and I had a cranberry sorbet that was so good!!! I much prefer ice cream over pie.

7) Football or family movie?

I would choose a family movie, preferably a fall Hallmark one!

8) Stuffing or dressing?

We call it "stuffing" because my mom stuffs it inside the turkey but we don't eat it at Thanksgiving. We eat a big turkey dinner at Christmas when my parents are around and, even though I'm vegetarian, I will happily eat a ton of stuffing :)

9) Turkey trot or Thanksgiving parade?

 Since we live in the cities which hosts the second largest Oktoberfest in the world, we have the Oktoberfest Parade on Thanksgiving Day. The route now runs two blocks from our house. Due to the rain, we skipped it this year.

When we lived in Edmonton, we participated in the Turkey Trot and it was super fun! I would love to do a Turkey Trot again but there isn't one near us that I know of.

The year Rachel was born, I nursed while I ran, just to prove that I could!

10) Have you ever done a Friendsgiving?

We've done Friendsgivings in the past but we've been invited to them, we've never hosted one.

I have to be honest, our Thanksgiving felt a little lacklustre and disappointing this year. I would definitely love a redo of Thanksgiving. However, I am thankful that we had a nice celebration with my parents, even if it wasn't on our actual Thanksgiving Day. I know that some holidays are just like that and I'm already hoping for a better Thanksgiving next year.