Here’s what I’ve created for Thanksgiving (which will be at my sister’s) so far.

Sadly, my pumpkin muffins all got eaten. My son, just home from college for the holiday had some friends over last night…I should have hid them like I hid the chex mix.

I’ll also be making cole slaw, the veggie tray, and meh-be truffles, if I get ambitious later tonight.

Actually, the turkeys are something my nine year old, and I made together. She already gave one away to her teacher. The other two will be given away, tomorrow:

I’d give you directions, but boy…it’s pretty self explanatory isn’t it? We used the miniature pots because that’s what we had on hand, and we glued fun foam feathers on the back, (you could use real feathers, too), fun foam for the head, too…we would have used googly eyes, but didn’t have any, so we made ours out of paper. You can make some feet out of fun foam, too…it looks like Maggie’s fell off, whoops. We filled some tissue paper with holiday M&M’s and wrapped it up with curly ribbon, and voila. Easy peasy lemon squeazy.

This chex mix is special. It’s a damn sight better than the garden variety chex mix you buy at the store. I’ve had the recipe for over 20 years, and I always use it at holiday time. Here’s the recipe:

1 pkg Rice Chex 4 T BBQ sauce

1/2 pkg Wheat Chex 4 T Worchester

1/3 pkg Cheerios 2 t celery salt

1/2 pkg stick pretzels 3t onion salt

1 can of mixed nuts 2 t garlic salt

1/2 can cashews 1 cup salad oil

1/2 can of almonds 1 cup butter

(I don’t use quite as much seasoning as the recipe calls for myself…I don’t like it that salty…play around with it).

Heat oil and butter. Dissolve seasonings in oil. Spoon over nuts and cereal mixure. Mix well. Put in shallow pans and heat at 200° for 2 hours.

I’ve started making my own cranberry sauce from scratch. It’s so much better than the canned stuff:

INGREDIENTS:

12 oz bag fresh cranberries

3/4 cup orange juice

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar

Optional: 2 oz gold rum

DIRECTIONS:

Place all the ingredients in a sauce pan and cook on medium-high for 15-20 minutes or until most of the liquid has reduced – stirring occasional. You’ll hear the cranberries popping – don’t worry, that’s what you want them to do. Remove from heat and serve. Cranberry sauce can be made days ahead and brought to room temperature or slightly heated before serving.

Cross-posted at Nice Deb