Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family! I hope your day is filled with lots of gravy, family time, stretchy clothing, and thankful thoughts. And that your tomorrow involves sleeping late and a leftover turkey sandwich ;)
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But really though, I'm so not ready for Thanksgiving, especially because it's going to be a particularly crazy week. On Wednesday we're having Jeff's family over for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner, on Thursday we're heading up to my grandma's house for the day, and on Friday we're having lunch with my mom's family downtown and then we're getting on an airplane and flying to France. Note to self: make sure I don't need to do any last minute shopping before we leave. I probably need to do some last minute shopping before we leave.
Even though I don't love Thanksgiving food (ahh I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!), I still try to go for comfort when dressing for the eating holiday of all eating holidays. Tight jeans? Nah. Form-fitting tees? Never. Bodycon dresses? Why on earth would you do that to yourself?!
Instead I try to go for leggings (or my new favorite stretchy jeans!) or higher waisted skirts that won't show off your food baby. I love pairing these with festive tops and sweaters that don't scream Christmas but are still fun. Or, you know, toss on a flowy fall dress and call it a day! Here's a little inspiration for your Turkey Day outfit:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
RECREATE THE LOOK:
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Do you celebrate Friendsgiving? I never had until I started dating Jeff, but it's such a fun idea. I love getting the chance to hang with friends in a more casual setting than the typical holiday meal, and getting a chance to see everyone before they all leave town to spend Thanksgiving with their families.
What I don't like? The food!
That's right. It may be blasphemous, but I'm not a Thanksgiving food lover. Really, all I need is the turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy. And really, I didn't add the gravy into my Thanksgiving repertoire until my late teens. I'm pretty sure my sister just eats the mashed potatoes.
I have a lot of reasons why I dislike Thanksgiving food (I mean, really, what the eff is stuffing?!), but my real problem is with what happens to the vegetables. A vegetable just should never be in a casserole.
When it came time to picking a dish to bring to Friendsgiving, I spent a few years making random desserts decorated like turkeys, and then moved on to mashed cauliflower (because mashed potatoes were always taken by the time I got to signing up). But now I bring brussels sprouts every year. I weirdly love brussels sprouts, which is still really weird to me because they're one of those vegetables you're supposed to hate. I don't know what happened to America's collective taste buds because it seems like the whole country simultaneously changed their mind about the vegetable. And you know what, I'm not complaining!
Usually I roast (or grill!) brussels sprouts with lots of olive oil, salt, pepper, and maybe some garlic or crushed red pepper. But for Friendsgiving it feels appropriate to get a little fancier, especially since I was only in charge of making one dish and not thirteen. This recipe took about an hour total, which is a little time consuming, but isn't complicated - anyone can make it and fancy up their brussels sprouts! The recipe originally came from the New York Times, but I made a few modifications. Here's my favorite Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving brussels sprouts!
Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta
Makes 6-8 servings
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 tsp fresh or dried thyme
4 TB olive oil, separated
4 TB unsalted butter
2 lbs brussels sprouts, trimmed, larger sprouts cut in two
Salt and pepper
6 oz pancetta (find at the deli counter, ask them to cut it 1/2 inch thick pieces), diced
1 shallot, minced
1 TB garlic, minced
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup chicken stock, more if needed
2 TB fresh parsley, chopped
Heat oven to 350. In a small bowl, combine breadcrumbs, thyme, and 2 TB olive oil. Spread out over a baking sheet. Bake until golden, 10-12 minutes, stirring often.
Heat remaining olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add brussels sprouts and salt and pepper (to taste). Sautee 3 minutes or until sprouts just begin to brown, stirring often. Add pancetta and continue sauteeing, stirring often, until sprouts turn deep brown and pancetta gets crispy, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low, and add shallots and garlic, and cook 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
Increase heat to high and add balsamic vinegar and chicken stock, stirring frequently to coat. Cook 10 minutes, or until sprouts are glazed, adding more stock as necessary. Top with fresh parsley and move to serving bowl, sprinkling breadcrumbs on top. Enjoy!
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There are some days that you just want to be cozy, amiright? Last weekend we went to a Friendsgiving party, and with all of the turkey and mashed potatoes coming my way, I decided the comfier, the better. Leggings? Check. Oversized sweater? Check. Gigantic scarf that I could wrap around myself and wear as a dress if I wanted? Double check. This was somehow the first time I've worn this scarf since I got it, and you guys, it is the perfect blanket scarf. Not too crazy huge, and super soft.
For the real deal next week, I'll probably be wearing something really similar. I've always wished our family Thanksgivings were a little dressier, you know, so I'd have an excuse to wear my heels and dresses, but alas, we always go super casual. Also, if I try dressing up at all my sister gets mad at me. You should have seen her reaction when I ignored her "tee-shirts only" packing request for our family vacation this summer. She takes her comfortable dressing seriously.
What will you be wearing for Thanksgiving next week? Are you going dressy, or is comfort king?
This Sunday I'm heading to our annual Friendsgiving party. I'm weirdly not into Thanksgiving food (I really only like the turkey, potatoes, and gravy) so I have a hard time deciding what to bring every year. Sometimes I on purpose bring weirdly untraditional things, but this year I'm thinking I'll try baking some rolls or biscuits from scratch. Here are a couple of the recipes I'm considering:
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! With three turkey dinners in as many days my stomach was quite pleased. All of the colors in this outfit reminded me of a Thanksgiving dinner, with cranberry sauce of course. Velvet jeans have really become my go-to this fall. They're so comfy and soft, I want to wear them every day!
Sweater: Old Navy / Velvet Jeans: Target / Boots:Bandolino/ Necklace: Loft / Ring: World Market / Manicure: Essie Powder Clutch
Whenever I rock this particular ring the boyfriend starts to get nervous, he calls it my brass knuckles. Don't worry, I've never used it for harm. I actually got it from World Market, which often has some cool pieces for cheap. Unfortunately the store by my apartment recently closed so that a Walmart Express could move in. Double thumbs down.
Thanksgiving is traditionally the craziest holiday of the year for my family. We try to jam pack as many traditions, outings, and family gatherings as possible. As a kid it was a little overwhelming (especially when I had homework!) but now I love it!
On that note, I'm going to be taking a Thanksgiving Break from blogging for a couple of days. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and see you next week!
Every year it seems I end up celebrating Thanksgiving several times before the main event. Today I'm getting my first Thanksgiving dinner of the season at a Friendsgiving party. Last year I brought my flop, the Turkey Cake, but this year I'm going for my new standby, Mini Meatloaf Bites. Not exactly traditional Thanksgiving, but frankly, I'm all for breaking the rules. As long as someone else remembers to bring a turkey.
So last week I posted about wanting to complete some Pinterest projects. It turns out that sharing your goals with others, no matter how small they may be, really sets a fire under your butt to get them down. And thus, I present to you, some fall candles.
(my roommate put out the pumpkins and gourds in the background, how cute!)
The idea for the cinnamon stick candles came from 320 Sycamore. They were really simple to make, I simply hot glued the cinnamon sticks directly to the candles. Each candle took about 1.5 packages of cinnamon sticks (look for them in the spice aisle).
The twine-wrapped candle was a little trickier because for some reason the glue and the twine didn't want to stick to each other at the same time. Eventually I got it though, and then wrapped the rest of the twine around the piece I had glued to the candle. Hot glue might not be the best choice for this candle since it melts the candle.
Not sure yet if it's safe to actually burn these, but the cinnamon candles smell great without having to light them!
Happy Friday everyone! On my pumpkin cake post, I mentioned that I also tried to make a turkey-shaped cake at one point that sort of flopped. This used the same technique as the pumpkin cake, except I doubled the recipe. After I stacked the cakes on top of each other (in an aluminum baking pan), I cut off the sides to make it more oval like a turkey, then took the parts I had cut off and cut them into drumstick shapes and stuck them to the ends. Then I dyed some frosting a tannish brown and covered the whole thing.
Post-flop thoughts: If I had really been thinking, I would have made some wings as well, or stuffing or faux veggies to fill up the rest of the pan with. It just needed a little more oompf. However, this was actually an irish car bomb cake (thanks Smitten Kitchen!) so it still got eaten ;)
