Our #Lowcarb #Thanksgiving - The Day After

So all my plans for what to prepare went out the window. Except for the duck! I had $20 to spend and most of it went for the bird. Another 99c for a carby can of cranberry sauce (even better with duck than with turkey, IMHO!). Daughter brought sweet potatoes. There were 4 of us: Pete and I, daughter Casey, and her 2½ son Leelan. We'd planned to have my mom also but she didn't want to come at the last minute. (She has Lewy Body Disease and lives at a nearby nursing home.)

After buying the duck and the cranberry sauce I planned to fill in the rest of the meal with whatever we had on hand, which I'd had all figured out for several days. But then Thanksgiving morning, everything changed.

I had looked up instructions on how long to roast a 5½# duck, and learned it would be 4 hours. We'd planned a 12:30 mealtime (so that Casey and Leelan could also go eat with her dad later in the day, otherwise we'd have eaten later). So I got up early and prepared the duck and put it in the oven, setting the wrapper aside in my garbage bowl. I read it a little later, and it said 2½ hours - DARN! Then Leelan got up and started vomiting. Thankfully Pete got home from work, and dealt with all that, but the poor kid was sick over and over and over again...even with Pete taking care of Leelan, that added to the morning chaos. I still had to mop the kitchen and bathroom floors, so I got busy with that. Pete helped with moving things and sweeping since my back was already in bad shape. (Without pain drugs I couldn't have done anything at all yesterday!)

The floors got done, the duck got done WAY early, Casey got here with the sweet potatoes which needed to be baked (I would have had them in the oven with the duck, had my original plan worked out!). The duck sat in its roaster on the stovetop for an hour while I made the dessert and while the sweet potatoes baked. I forgot all about the rolls I'd planned to make, forgot all about the roasted cauliflower, and Casey forgot all about bringing a green vegetable. So I had a half-bag of frozen corn (which I keep for Leelan) that I heated up with butter. And I tossed some frozen green beans into a pan with duck fat and lots of onion powder, some garlic powder, and sea salt. The dessert turned into something much simpler than originally intended: I put a small can of pumpkin, a brick of cream cheese, a package each of SF cheesecake and vanilla pudding, a scoop of vanilla protein powder, a couple cups of cream, some brown sugar sub, and cinnamon/nutmeg/cloves into the mixing bowl of my kitchen aid and hit the switch. 5 minutes later I stuck it in the fridge, and voila! Pumpkin cheesecake pudding!

There were more carbs on the table than I'd planned too. I ate duck, green beans, cranberry sauce (my only carby food for the day, so sue me!), and dessert, and ate pretty much as I always do. It was wonderful to know that I wouldn't wake up the next day fearing the needle on the scale, and that I didn't exchange my thankfulness with gluttony. That felt seriously much better than had I made myself stuffed with gravy and potatoes and dressing and pie!

So did the dinner turn out differently than I expected? Definitely! Was it delicious and even amazing? Absolutely! Was the real meaning of the day - gratitude to God for His many blessings and care for us throughout the year - any less meaningful or evident because of the menu changes? TOTALLY NOT!

It was a good Thanksgiving :).