Thanksgiving 2014

I know it is tradition to have Turkey and mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner.  But to be honest that isn’t a meal that goes over well with my crowd.  Most of them don’t even like pumpkin pie.  And way back in the day before we had kids Deric and I didn’t know how to cook too many things and looked far away from our families.  So we used to make lasagna for Thanksgiving.  Sure friends would invite us over for turkey, but it is those quiet dinners just the two of us cooking and eating lasagna that I remember most fondly.

One year when our oldest was old enough to go to school, but young enough to still be brainwashed by the things they told her she decided we needed to have a more traditional feast.  “But mom we gotta have turkey for Thanksgiving.”  And, thus, we went down the traditional Thanksgiving dinner road. 

Fast forward a dozen or so years later and we find ourselves living closer to family.  Our presence is required by multiple sides for every holiday.  After 20 years of living far away, I find the number of times we have to make a big production from November to January utterly exhausting.  Longing for those simpler days of traditional Thanksgiving lasagna, I started thinking about the idea of a Thanksgiving meal.  My oldest, who years ago insisted on a traditional dinner, now doesn’t eat any of it but the rolls.  There is no consensus on the side dishes so we end up making many different dishes that go half eaten and eventually get thrown out.

Feeling as if all that cooking is for nothing on my day off, I decided it’s time for a new chapter.  Thanksgiving dinner will never be the simple affair it was back when it was just the two of us, but at least we can all have something we like.   

 

So this year I asked each of my children (ages 8-16) to make their favorite dish, or at one they wanted to eat.  No traditional Thanksgiving food was chosen.  But we are going eat well!  I am making lasagna and garlic bread…..