Turkey and Travels

"Hola! Soy es Dora!"

Okay, not really. I'm actually Jon, but Alya was playing a Dora game on the laptop two minutes ago, so that phrase is currently stuck in my head.

I hope that everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving. Our's was filled with travelling and fun. We actually started out our holiday on Tuesday. Sasha made the corn bread stuffing Tuesday night and then prepared the apple pie.

And I'm going to tell you Sasha's secret to making yummy corn bread stuffing. It's apple chunks. Yep, little bits of apple in the stuffing lightens the dish and adds that nice touch of sweet. For the meat, she put in chorizo this year. That made it a little spicier than usual, but only a little. For me, it is the stuffing of choice. Leave your stale wheat bread. Discard those loaves of white. Give me that corn bread stuffing, and Thanksgiving will be alright.

But don't use those gizzards and livers. That's gross.

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Wednesday was our first travel segment. After getting the okay to leave work early, I flew home so that we could hit the road and head to Sasha's mom's place. It is a good halfway point between our destination and home, so we were planning on staying there overnight and finishing any prep work on our foods.

The kids fared well in the car, so we were able to zip down and see Grandma Susan and Uncle Marty. Both Marcus and Alya enjoyed running around in a new environment. Alya's favorite thing was to bounce on the leather recliner, sending it rocking back a far as it could and then jumping some more. Climbing the back was also a fun time for her.

Marcus really enjoyed the presence of Andi, one of Susan's cats. Andi had no fear of the kids and liked getting petted no matter who was doing the giving. For Marcus, it was exciting to have a kitty hang around without taking off at the slightest squeak. But while Andi enjoyed the kids, he seemed to prefer draping himself over Marty.

Once we got the kids down (and both of them slept like a rock) the cooking began. Sasha and Susan put together the sweet potatoes, while I made the pumpkin pies. First time for me, but I have to say it's a pretty easy deal when you use canned pumpkin.

Nice side note, we managed to catch the episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay where they go to the Elegant Farmer here in Wisconsin. Flay was challenging their apple pie in a bag with his own little fried apple pie. It was fun to see a place we've taken the kids to every year on the Food Network. Oh, and the Elegant Farmer won the throwdown, which made it all the better.

Thanksgiving Day consisted of lot of travel, lots of good food and even more good family. We went to Sasha's cousins Jeff and Patty's place location in the middle of Northern Illinois. The house is a beautiful old farm house, with dogs on the inside and cats all over outside.

Sadly, Alya really is terrified of dogs, so that made things rough for her in the beginning. Things improved as Alya got to play with her cousin Elliott the entire day. Elliott is five and saw Alya as the baby she could play with.

The food spread was fantastic, tender turkey, sweet honey ham, and Sasha's fantastic stuffing. What more could an omnivore ask for? And this omnivore ended up eating more than a standard portion. So delicious.

Oh, and people liked the pumpkin pie, although I believe that the Apple Pie was better. Not very juicy, but with thin and tender apples. We finished off the last of the pie over a game of cribbage last night, and holy cats was it so good. I could go for another one right now....

Anyway, it was a fun time with family, and while the drive back was long it was well worth the time.

Be seeing you,

Jon

Elegant Farmer - http://www.elegantfarmer.com/