Sausage Apple and Cranberry Stuffing

I love finding recipes with beautiful photos and descriptions that make you salivate before you can finish the instructions.  This recipe is the perfect stuffing for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Unfortunately, I have no gorgeous photos to make you salivate.  I scrounged up a few just to make it interesting.  Seriously, this stuffing is the bomb.

Ingredients:

3 3/4 cups of cubed white bread

1 1/2 cups of cubed whole wheat bread

1 lb ground sausage

1 cup finely chopped onion

1 Golden Delicious apple, cored and chopped

1 cooked turkey liver, finely chopped

3/4 cup chopped celery

3/4 cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup minced fresh parsley

4 Tbl. melted butter

3/4 c. turkey stock

2 1/2 tsp. sage

1 1/2 tsp. rosemary

1/2 tsp thyme

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Bake bread cubes on baking sheet 5-7 minutes.  (I often buy pre-made bread cubes/stuffing)

In large skillet, cook sausage and onions.  

Add celery, sage, rosemary and thyme and cook 2 minutes.

Pour sausage mixture over bread in bowl.  

Mix in apples, cranberries, parsley and liver.

Drizzle with turkey stock and melted butter and mix lightly.

Stuff in turkey or cook in pan until internal temperature is 160 degrees.

Easy Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies

Thanksgiving is almost here and everyone is making cute stuff for their tables.  Turkeys abound!  These are my favorite Thanksgiving decorations that are also tasty little cookie treats.  Kids love them!  Best of all - no baking or cooking of any kind - just assembly!  I originally posted this in 2011, but the recipe never gets old.

I love doing DIYs, but the best DIYs have pictures.  I'm going one step further here, and doing this DIY with JUST PICTURES.  Enough words - on with the directions:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Step 5:

TAA DAAA!

Turkeys quickly multiply . . .

until they are a flock!

BTW, you can use either the chocolate covered cherries or mint drops for the body.

cindy

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is the one day each year when we make a conscious effort to say thank you to our God. We should say thanks every day, every hour, but while I'm thinking about it, here goes:

I thank God for each person who reads my ramblings.

I'm thankful for my wonderful family, especially my husband and children.

I am thankful I'm not cooking today thanks to my mother-in, law.

I'm thankful to spend time with my brother and his family and many friends.

I'm thankful for the men and women who won't be with their families because they are serving our country in a far away land.

There is always a reason to give thanks.

Even if you don't feel thankful today because your life may be difficult, be thankful because your difficulty will lead to something even better.

Best of all, thank God because He loves you just the way you are.

Cindy

A Chain of Thanks

This was a project we first did last year on Thanksgiving and we're going to repeat it this year.  It was very popular and so easy to do!  Here's my directions from last year:

Start with some autumn color construction paper cut into 1 1/2" wide strips:




Provide a strip to everyone gathered at your Thanksgiving table and write why you are thankful:

Collect the strips and create a chain of thanks:

My kids had a great time doing this with grandma and grandpa.  Later we went to my brother and sister-in-law's house for dessert.  They usually have a lot of people over for Thanksgiving, including many friends.  Even though we didn't know many of them, people were happy to share their thoughts of thanks with us.  It brought a great meaning to Thanksgiving.

After making our chain of thanks, we hung it on our Christmas tree to remember to be thankful during the holidays.  It added a sense of continuity to the holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Have a thankful Thanksgiving!

cindy

New Adventures Part 4

I'm now about a month and a half into this weight loss journey and am happy to report that as of today I have lost 30 pounds!  I'm very excited about this milestone, especially as it comes the day after Thanksgiving.  It wasn't nearly has hard as everyone thought it would be for Thanksgiving - after all, 500 calories in a day won't even get you past the sweet potatoes and stuffing.  But I went into it knowing I couldn't eat any of those starchy foods, so I was happy to join the family eating a little turkey breast, broccoli and jello (sugar free).

I have a little over a week to go with the HcG shots, then it's time for "stabilization".  That's the 6 week period where you can't gain or lose any more than 2 pounds from your base weight.  I have to admit I'm really not looking forward to this phase.  First of all, I want to keep losing weight, with or without the shots.  My "base weight" isn't going to be my ultimate goal weight and I want to keep moving.  Second, in this phase I will have more choices for food and I need to incorporate exercise.  You know, it's so much easier to stay focused when you don't have to make food choices or schedule exercise into the day.  So maybe I should be happy about 6 weeks where I can learn to balance food with exercise, while still negotiating the holiday season.

Anyway, I'm very happy I cleared the first big hurdle of the holidays - Thanksgiving.  Bring on Christmas!

cindy

My Favorite Thanksgiving Dishes

Everyone has memories of great smells and busy kitchens on Thanksgiving Day (unless of course your mom couldn't cook and you were at a restaurant).  I remember my grandmother sitting at the kitchen table peeling apples and cutting grapes for her famous Apple Salad.  It was actually a Waldorf Salad, but we didn't know any better.  It had mayonnaise in it, so my sister and I didn't like it, but even after my grandmother died, my mother made that Apple Salad for years.

I also have bad memories of a Thanksgiving at my aunt's house where everyone had salmonella poisoning after the turkey thawed too long before cooking - not fun.  My aunt has a small house and with all of my family there were 15 people, each with their own trash can, doing what sick people do with trash cans.

My mom and dad are gone now, but I continue one tradition for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It's a recipe my mother made for Cheesy Broccoli.  It's not an old fashioned recipe, as it uses Velveeta and a microwave oven, but every time I eat it I think of the holidays with my parents and family.  I'm thankful for all those Thanksgivings I shared with them and I love sharing it with my family now.  Here's the recipe for Cheesy Broccoli - maybe you can start a new family tradition this year.  Feel free to tweak it to taste.

Cheesy Broccoli

7 oz box of white rice

1 family size bag of frozen broccoli

1 stick (8 Tbsp) butter or margarine

1/2 of medium onion

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

1 c. milk

2 c. of chopped Velveeta (1 pound)

Partially defrost broccoli.  In saucepan or large microwave casserole dish mix butter, chopped onion, soup, milk and Velveeta.  Heat over medium heat or put in microwave on high, stirring every five minutes out of the microwave.  Heat until Velveeta is melted.  Mix in uncooked rice and broccoli.  Microwave on high 15-20 minutes (or you can cook in saucepan until rice is almost cooked and then transfer to baking dish and bake on 325-350 degrees for about 30 minutes).  Cook until everything has firmed and mixture is set.

Happy Thanksgiving!

cindy

Links in a Chain of Thanks

Although it's always special to spend time with friends and family feasting on turkey and joining together, sometimes it's hard to remember why we gather on Thanksgiving.  This year we're going to start a new tradition that will help us remember.

Start with some autumn color construction paper cut into 1 1/2" wide strips:

Provide a strip to everyone gathered at your Thanksgiving table and write why you are thankful:

Collect the strips and create a chain of thanks:

You can use the chain to adorn your Thanksgiving table or save it for next year.  It can also be a good addition to your Christmas tree to tie the holidays together.  This is a great activity for kids.  It's so easy to prepare (think about giving the paper to the kids during the morning when you're trying to cook), and it teaches children to think about the spirit of this American holiday.  You can also use the chain to ring your table and thank God for your blessings just before dinner.

Have a thankful Thanksgiving.

cindy

First Things First

It's not going to happen this year.  I am not going to run like a mad woman doing for the sake of doing.  I will have a meaningful holiday season.  These are my mantras as the Season looms like an approaching storm.  Notice I capitalized "Season" as if it is a threatening entity instead of the joyful and spiritual time anticipating the coming of the Kingdom.

First things first


I will not be making gifts this year.  In previous years I have made many of our Christmas gifts, especially for extended family.  I love being able to do this, as I firmly believe a handmade gift is more meaningful and personal.  However, without more advance planning, creating items at the last minute can result in sloppy gifts that are made at a time when I should be enjoying the holiday season.

First things first


I will carefully plan and purchase gifts using online resources, especially considering so many of our family members live out of state.  The free shipping and discounts I expect to see in the next week should work well with this plan.  (Just writing this has resulted in several great gift ideas.)  If I can get that done soon without mailing or wrapping, I can focus my attention on family and home.

First things first


I will make a concerted effort to get the Christmas decorating completed by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.  In the past I have dragged out all of my Christmas decorations only to gradually put them up over a long period of time.  That has deprived us of the cozy Christmas home we expected because it was cluttered with storage bins and packing paper.  If it's not done by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, we will have a more simple cozy Christmas with fewer decorations.

First things first


I will get the Advent calendar out before Advent begins and fill it with quotes from the Bible preparing for the coming of Christ.  I will set up our nativity and populate it each evening with a new character in an effort to teach my children about the time and place where Jesus was born.  I will involve my family in decorating our Christmas tree together with ornaments that reflect our memories of times and places we have enjoyed together.

First things first


I will not focus too much on the things and tasks I need to do, including the items mentioned in this post.  The most important thing about Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas is to enjoy time with family and friends in joy and charity, so things and tasks are less important.

First things first


cindy