Happy Thanksgiving!
Hope everyone is having a wonderful day with family and friends! We're spending a low-key, low-stress day at home and I cooked my first turkey!
The before:
The after:
It was mighty tasty. Not dry at all and good flavor. I told Jerm he could eat the turkey leg Fair-Style, since I didn't want any of the dark meat. He did not hesitate.
The before:
The after:
(and no, nobody in this house is pregnant. Jerm just ate too much!)
We also had stuffing from scratch, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn and green fluffy salad. We're too full for pie right now, so we'll eat pumpkin pie later tonight!
Everything turned out well and I'm pretty proud of both the turkey and the fact that I didn't get stressed out. Plus, everything was ready at the same time!
We miss our families and wish we could spend time with you today!
And, yes, we went around the table (ok, we both said) to say what we are thankful for!
Labels: cooking, Thanksgiving, turkey
Pan and Jerm Do the Outer Banks
Pan took a week off for vacation, and we went with Mark and Patti to the Outer Banks. Nags Head, specifically; it was awesome. We actually went a couple weeks ago, but have been too busy with work to post about it.
This was the beach at low tide at night. It was a great time for finding a bunch of nice intact shells. Pan actually found her conch the next morning at low tide with a few other huge shells.
We stayed here. It was a nice place that served a good breakfast and had a wine and cheese hour. It was cool and very reminiscent of our trip to Vermont at the end of August.
This was our room. You can't really see all of it because of the nooks and crannies, but it was very old-style.
Turtles, I guess. These were at the NC Aquarium on the island of Manteo. It was a pretty small aquarium, but what they did have, was pretty cool. Lots of tiger sharks, stingrays, and what not.
I don't know how to rotate a pic on Blogger, so you'll have to turn your head sideways. This was the Bodie Island Lighthouse. It's one of 3 major lighthouses on the Outer Banks, with the Hatteras Lighthouse being the tallest. I didn't really expect to be blown away by a lighthouse, but it was actually pretty neat.
Us, enjoying the few days we spent there. It was a great time to go to Nags Head, with the warmer-weather crowds non-existent at the time. We also took the opportunity while we were there to eat way too much seafood, including rockfish, gulffish (with a gouda/bacon cream sauce and marinated tomato), shrimp (so fresh, so clean), scallops, lobster, a lot of crab, and probably a bunch of stuff that I'm not remembering. We did not buy/eat the alligator sausage that was available for purchase, though. Pan did buy plenty of "souvenir yarn" at a cool place in Manteo.
On the way back, we went through Chapel Hill and spent way too much money at Trader Joe's and spent some time in the hugely(60,000 square feet) awesome kitchen store that has everything (even Bacon Salt!),
Southern Season. It was ridiculous and a little overwhelming. But mostly awesome.
Overall, it was a great time and convinced us to come to the Outer Banks at least once a year, maybe as soon as next summer on Ocracoke Island. Thanks, Mark and Patti!
Labels: beach, food, lighthouse, ocean, Outer Banks, vacation
Steak w/Chimichurri
This was really, really good. I had never made chimichurri before, but this was a good first effort, although I already have ideas on how to improve it.
Labels: chimichurri, cooking, steak
Saturday Sandwich
Jerm had been craving some sort of italian sandwich, and I picked up a big huge link (seriously the whole package was one link of sausage, like you'd get from a butcher shop) of italian sausage the other day. I'm lazy and don't like to cook elaborate meals on my one day off a week (it interrupts my inevitable afternoon nap!), so I tossed the sausage in the crockpot with 3 onions, a can of diced tomatoes and some spices. Chopped it up and made a delicious sandwich with some mozzarella and spaghetti sauce. I ate mine on pasta which was equally delicious. Yum!
Labels: cooking, food, sandwich
(and no, nobody in this house is pregnant. Jerm just ate too much!)
Everything turned out well and I'm pretty proud of both the turkey and the fact that I didn't get stressed out. Plus, everything was ready at the same time!
