Happy Thanksgiving!

Rob is on swing shift this week, so posts have been scarce. Not because I haven't had anything to say, or any food to share. There's been plenty. In fact, Rob even made cookies! Really!! The guy whose best meal is canned tomato soup with minute rice made homemade cookies from scratch! Something about swing shift just takes away my time and inspiration to post.

Until tonight!

I was totally prepared to go without a Thanksgiving post, and even a Thanksgiving. For months, he knew he was supposed to work that afternoon. So we decided to not make a big deal out of it. Why stress myself out all morning for an elaborate lunch that we have to quickly inhale so he makes it to work on time, and then I'm left spending the rest of the afternoon getting fat off of cleaning up the leftovers while dealing with the baby? What kind of holiday is that? Don't ask me, because that's not how it turned out!

Yesterday evening, I get a phone call. He got the day off! At the last second they decide to give half of his crew Thursday off, and the other half Friday off! WOOOO! WAIT! NO! Tomorrow off? We don't have ANY Thanksgiving food, it's 6pm on Wednesday night, and Rob has the car! Luckily, I was able to get ahold of his friend Dave, who was nice enough to drive me to two stores so I could get my Tofurky and all of the other little Thanksgiving must-haves. Whew!

We invited Dave to have dinner with us. It was the least we could do since he was nice enough to take me shopping! Holidays are more fun with company anyway. I knew the boys would be watching football, so I whipped up some dips for them: Pine Nut and Garlic Hummus and Black Bean Dip. They were just sort of thrown together at the last second so I don't have actual recipes. Here's the general idea of what I did though:

For the hummus, I toasted up a handful of pine nuts, a can of drained and rinsed chickpeas, and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil. I seasoned it up with some fresh rosemary and thyme, as well as dried basil, oregano, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. After letting it cool a bit, I ground up everything in a food processor with tahini, more olive oil, and some vegetable broth. It turned out a little dry. It needed more tahini and olive oil. It tasted excellent though!

For the black bean dip, I drained and rinsed the beans and threw them in a pan with a few cloves of garlic and toasted them as well as black beans could be toasted. They were seasoned with cumin, chili powder, a little bit of oregano, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and salt. This was blended up with olive oil and veggie broth, and I managed to not make it too dry. It was a big hit!

Both dips were served with fresh veggies and chips for dipping (of course they ate the chips and left most of the veggies...boys...), and black olives. The hummus is on the left, and the black bean dip is on the right.


Dinner turned out great. The Tofurky turned out excellent. I used my usual recipe.


There was a massive bowl of mashed potatoes that required some serious muscle to mash. I might have gone a little overboard with those. Which, of course, is way better than not making enough!! Yay for leftovers!


Dave brought the cranberry sauce, which turned out awesome!


Not Pictured: Sweet baked yams, green beans (from a can...not worth a picture), homemade apple crisp (Mom's recipe), and sparkling cider (because we're wild like that). It was a great meal that I was very lucky to have. I definitely have something to be thankful for.