Thanksgiving 2015

We had a good Thanksgiving.

Since the two older girls have (thankfully) graduated from college

and have (even more thankfully) taken jobs that require them to sometimes work on the holidays,

we've had to adjust our holiday celebrations around their work schedules.  

We have learned to celebrate our time together, no matter when that may be.  

We did not think we were going to my dad's for Thanksgiving, but did. 

It was decided on the Sunday before. 

We (my little family) are trying to establish our own holiday celebrations, make new routines, work around work schedules and would love to rotate holidays around.

This is our fifth holiday season since my mom passed away and I just feel like it is time to change things up a bit to accommodate everyone's different lives now.

But guys, family dynamics are hard to deal with.

I just leave it with that.

Barrett was so excited to be in the kitchen baking again!

Living in a dorm on a college campus is really interfering with her hobby.

She was home all day Wednesday and did nothing but bake and cook.

We took this tray of miniature desserts to my dad's house.

Friday, Brooke drove home from DC. She (flight attendant) worked/flew Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and was on call on Thursday so was not able to be here on Thanksgiving Day. Her boyfriend, Mr. E, came with her. 

Brittany's fiancé, Mr. B,  was also staying with us.

He is from Raleigh, but is temporally working in Nashville until February.

Friday night we stayed in and grilled hamburgers and watched TV.

Saturday was the big rivalry football game here in North Carolina, University of North Carolina versus North Carolina State. 

Everyone in our family (boyfriends included) went to one of these schools except for me.

We had pans to tailgate and go to the game. 

Barrett's friend Kat came with us too.

Sunday, we celebrated Thanksgiving again since Brooke wasn't able to be with us on Thursday. 

This is the second year that we used one of Bobby Flay's roasted turkey recipes and it was delicious once again.

After dinner I forced everyone outside to take pictures.

Our camellia is outdoing itself this year and I couldn't help taking a picture of it on its own.

Is there ever a photo shoot at our house where there isn't bickering or where someone doesn't demonstrate what the other one is doing wrong? 

NOPE!

Brittany and Mr. B haven't taken engagemnt pictures yet, so I thought I would give him a little taste of all of the torturous things he is going to have to do.

Things like this are really out of his comfort zone.

We found all of the pictures very very funny. 

I'll share later when I start my Wedding Wednesdays after Christmas. 

 I'll leave you with this:

 Bubbles was feeling very very thankful and thought he had hit the Thanksgiving feast jackpot,

until Barrett took her fish back to school with her on Sunday!

Maybe next year Mr. Bubbles!

 

26th Birthday

Brittany's birthday was on Friday.

She turned 26 at 5:04PM.

We had a busy weekend and our house was full and noisy, just the way I like it. 

     Brooke and Mr. E left DC at 5:30 in the morning on Friday. Mr. E had to work, and can work from home or anywhere as long as he has his laptop and phone. That was why they had to get on the road early so that they could get to Raleigh early enough for him to get his work day started upstairs in our office. It is a little more than a four hour drive. 

     Brittany was just getting up when Brooke got home. Luckily Brittany didn't have to work on her birthday! I was sitting on my bed drinking coffee waiting for Brooke to get here. When she did, she and Brittany ended up in my room dancing, laughing and finally chasing each other around the house. Brooke was taking snapchats of Brittany and Brittany was protesting because she had just crawled out of bed.  

     After her classes on Friday, Barrett headed home for the weekend. She was so excited to bake Brittany's cake. She misses not being able to bake because of being away at college. She made a chocolate ganache raspberry cake.

     We had reservations for dinner, but they were a little late so we made a charcuterie tray to nibble on while we waited. Well, we went into the dining room because Mr. E wanted to give Brittany his birthday gift to her, a bottle of nice champagne........

when we went back into the kitchen this is what we found!

This is a picture of one of the dogs that had a tummy ache! 

Poor Lola (and Charlie)!

I was a little worried about leaving the dogs at home and inside while we went to eat, but we did and they were okay. 

We went to a little locally owned italian restaurant near our house that we've been going to for more than 15 years.  I love small family owned restaurants.

It was time for cake when we got home!

Then it was present time!

Brittany really liked the gift that Mr. B got her, can't you tell?

Barrett gave Brittany the cutest coffee mug!

It came out backwards in the picture, but you can figure it out. 

Brittany insisted we play a few rounds of  Guesstures and even though we were all really tired and so full that all we wanted to really do was lay around and watch a movie we played.....

it was her birthday after all. 

On Saturday we had tickets to the UNC/Duke game, but since it was raining, Barrett and I opted to stay home and go shopping a little.

 Today, was a lazy day and late this afternoon our house emptied. Art flew to Dan Diego this morning. Brittany took Mr. B to the airport later so he could fly back to Nashville. Brooke and Mr. E left for DC and Barrett loaded up her clean laundry and headed back to school.

I'm not going to lie, I am sitting in a chair in the living room watching TV and am enjoying some quiet time with just Brittany.

I am also very happy knowing that my bathroom no longer looks like this....

Girls will be girls! 

ROASTED TOMATOES - TOMATO SAUCE - FREEZING TOMATOES

We have a friend that lives out in the country and has a farmer as a neighbor. This farmer has a booth at the State Farmer's Market and had a lot of tomatoes that were about to go bad.  Over the weekend the last batch of tomatoes had to be pulled because of the impending deep freeze coming our way on Friday.  

Our friend called Art and said he was on his way over with some tomatoes for us. 

"Some tomatoes" ended up being four boxes and then some. 

So what do you do with four boxes of ripe, beautiful tomatoes....

and a box of bell peppers? 

I decided to split up the process. I used two boxes of tomatoes to make a simple marinara. 

Barrett and I first peeled the two boxes of tomatoes.

To do that we dropped the tomatoes into boiling water a few at a time until the skins started cracking.

We then removed the tomatoes from the water and let them drain and cool on dish towels.

Once cooled, we pulled the skin off each tomato and put them into bowls. 

We then cut up the tomatoes and placed them in large soup pots along with salt, pepper,

chicken broth.....

and tons of garlic.

We cooked all of this for hours until the tomatoes fell apart. 

We added some of the chopped peppers and continue to simmer for several more hours until it was reduced and thick.  

We let our sauce cool and then divided it into gallon freezer bags and laid the bags flat in our freezer that is in the garage.

The next day we tackled the other two boxes of tomatoes.  

I make an awesome homemade tomato soup by roasting  tomatoes in a low temperature oven for half a day and then transferring them to the stove into a soup pot and adding broth, cheese and other good stuff.

We decided to do the first step in the tomato soup recipe.

We cut up the two boxes of tomatoes,

two bulbs of garlic,

tossed it all heavily in olive oil, salt and pepper

and spread everything out onto sheet pans.

I roasted the tomatoes on 325' for about five hours, moving them around every thirty minutes. 

I don't know if you have ever roasted tomatoes, if you haven't you should.

There is nothing like the smell of the tomatoes and garlic in the oven. 

It makes a very sweet rustic base.

(A lot of times, this how I make tomato sauce to go on top of pasta and fish.)

On a few on the pans, I added some baby carrots and onions. 

This just adds more flavor and depth to the tomato soup. 

After all of the tomatoes were out of the oven and cooled, I put them all into bowls to make it easier to ladle into freezer bags. 

I now have a shelf in my freezer stacked with tomato sauce and roasted tomatoes.

Bring on the snow days!  

I am ready and you are invited! 

 I didn't take pictures of what I did with the peppers, but the next day I made three baking dishes of stuffed bell peppers. I stuffed them with ground turkey, brown rice, garlic, parm cheese, mushrooms and diced tomatoes. 

I froze them in freezer/baking dishes -  triple wrapped in foil. When I am ready to bake them I will top them with cheese.