Thanksgiving Dinner 2009

This post will be more recipe and less accounting :).

Supper was delicious. The cornish hens turned out beautifully. After rinsing and patting them dry, I rubbed the skins with butter, then roasted them in a covered roasting pan in a 350° oven for an hour. While that was roasting I peeled and cut into chunks 2 rutabagas and diced half of a large onion, and set them all to boiling in heavily salted water, then covered, lowered the heat to left them to finish cooking.

I'd made the oopsies earlier in the day, but I made the pumpkin cheesecake dessert next. It was quite simple. 1 sm. can of pumpkin, 2c heavy whipping cream, 1 box of SF cheesecake pudding mix, 1/4c Diabetisweet brown sugar sub, ½c cold water,and hefty shakes of cinnamon and allspice. (Where did my nutmeg go???) Whipped it all at high speed until light and fluffy, then put it into a serving bowl and refrigerated it.

30 minutes before dinnertime I uncovered the hens and turned the oven temp up to 375°.

15 minutes before dinnertime I started heating the frozen whole green beans in a small frying pan with some olive oil and sea salt over medium heat, stirring occasionally while I set the table. Then I opened the can of jellied cranberry sauce (my one guilty pleasure today, I love the stuff!) and sliced it, mashed the rutabaga/onions with salt, pepper, and butter and moved them to a serving bowl; moved the green beans to a serving bowl and added a little butter on top, and put the now-golden hens on a serving platter from my childhood. A few of the oopsies were already on the table.

The photo above is our low carb (except for the cranberry sauce!) Thanksgiving dinner, plus the little dish of pure butter (and my mom's crossword books and tissues that she takes everywhere with her). For the 3 of us I felt no need to make a dozen dishes, and in fact this was plenty, and we have leftovers for tomorrow!


The dessert, served with freshly-whipped cream (to which I just added a splash of vanilla and a little Altern (Walmart's sucralose brand), since the dessert was already plenty sweet enough, and this is the result.

I have much for which to thankful, not only on Thanksgiving but every minute of every day of my blessed life. But to spend the day with the people I love, and to offer the food that I create for them with my own two hands, is what really makes the day special for me!

And The Plan For Thanksgiving Is...

...Cornish game hens. It will just be my husband and I, and my mom. Looking at turkeys in the store, we decided even a small one would be overkill, so we picked up 3 little hens. I'll mash rutabaga, and my mom wants green beans. I'll make oopsie rolls today (they're always better on day 2), and also the pumpkin mousse. Considering the bacon/onion/brussels sprouts dish that we love but not sure yet as that would involve some shopping and going to the supermarket on Thanksgiving eve isn't something I relish doing. No stuffing or gravy or sweet potatoes, we decided.

It will be easy and we can spend the day being thankful rather than cooking :).

A More Expensive - But Very Easy! - Day

Lunch was cheap: 2 slices of lowcarb bread ($1.99 for the loaf of 20 slices), a slice of american cheese, and some butter for my grilled cheese sandwich.

Supper was expensive. I was starving, and ate half a head of lettuce (65¢) with half a pound of shrimp ($2.50) and probably 15¢ worth of buttermilk ranch dressing. 

Still, under $5 for the day...

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Today's Good Lowcarb Eatin'!

I've had a craving for days that I finally satisfied at lunchtime: cut 1# of bacon into ½" pieces and fried lightly (to get "bits"); drained off most of the fat for later use; added 1/2 yellow onion, chopped, and fried with the bacon until onion was translucent and bacon was crispy; added a head of cabbage, chopped, with about ½c of water. Covered, reduced heat, and cooked for about 20 minutes, until the cabbage was soft; stirred it all up, then cooked for another 10 minutes. (If you like heat, you might want to add some red pepper flakes!)

Definitely cheap and easy! The cabbage was 60¢; the bacon was $1.79; the ½ onion was about a quarter. It made 3 large servings, so the total per serving was about 85¢. Doesn't get any cheaper than that!

Supper was a pork butt roast, which I'd gotten on sale for $1.19/lb. I brined it with sea salt (of course), chili powder, garlic and onion powder, and ginger - about 1/4c of salt and a couple of Tbsp of each of the spices. Then roasted as usual after a few hours of brining. It made an awesomely tender and flavorful roast that we'll be eating for several days. Each of us chose what we wanted to have with it (nuking frozen vegetables is easy enough); I opted just for some meat, about 6 oz., because I wasn't that hungry. Later I may nibble on some cauliflower dipped in ranch dressing or some veggie sticks.

Today was a great, flavorful, cheap and easy low carb day!

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