Two days completely off. It was wonderful to spend time with family while cooking and eating delicious food. Maybe we should celebrate Thanksgiving twice a year… at least. It’s so good to take some time to slow down and enjoy time with important people in your life. This fall Matt and I both have been soo busy, stopping to take a break seemed like an extra treat. Besides being thankful for time with family, I am super thankful to have wonderful clients and supporters that hire me to be their photographer and recommend me when they get the chance – and of course read my blog! Having my own business is a blessing and it would not possible with out you guys.

Since we hosted Thanksgiving – for the second time ever – we planned the food for dinner and had a blast making it extra delicious. Now this post is as much for you as it is for me, since I not only want to share the recipes I used but remember them! Matt and I tag teamed the majority of the dishes, and both of our mom’s helped out with the prep. It was great to have extra hands to pull it all together. So, here’s a little behind the scenes info for each dish:

Turkey: After an overnight brine in citrus, herbs, salt, brown sugar and water it was ready for dressing. The secret to our turkey this year was homemade mayo – thanks for the idea Bobby Flay! The mayo doesn’t melt like butter and keeps more moisture in the chicken since it crisps up quickly.

Mashed Potatoes: these stayed pretty basic, although we use a ricer to mash the potatoes and keep them soft and delicate.

Roasted Brussel Sprouts: We have made a few versions of this brussel sprout dish, but stepped it up a notch for thanksgiving by adding pomegranate seeds (inspired by Bobbly Flay). We didn’t stick to his recipe completely (no pomegranate molasses) but check it out if you’re looking for a place to start.

Cranberry Sauce: Matt found this recipe a few days before Thanksgiving so we decided to try out a version of it instead of our traditional prep. It was a winner and the perfect sweet/tart bite in the meal.

Chanterelle and Pear Stuffing: Hands down, best part of the meal – and to think I used to skip stuffing all together (of course it wasn’t made like this). We made this dish at our first thanksgiving, and while it turned out good we knew we could do better – so we added it to the menu once again. It’s no surprise that we lost that first recipe or forgot where we found it but there are several versions and we decided on this one from food.com. One thing I like about this recipe is baking the stuffing in muffin tins, so there are individual servings that have more crips and crunch. We literally had some with dessert as well since it was so good.

Pie: Sad to say but this year we didn’t make a pie and invited others to bring them instead. One thing we learned from our first Thanksgiving is that cooking all of the food takes a lot of work and it’s okay to not do it all yourself… of course you guys probably already know that.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well and enjoy the rest of the weekend!