The First Thanksgiving

For the very first time, I hosted Thanksgiving at my apartment in Tuscaloosa.  This was not our ideal situation, but because the Iron Bowl was on the Friday after Thanksgiving and Josh and I both had class until Wednesday night, it seemed to be our only plausible option. 

Every year, we go to my great-grandmother’s house, where she always has the most delicious spread of homemade goodness (she’s 99 so she’s got it down to a science), but since she would not be able to come to Tuscaloosa (she’s unfortunately in the nursing home :( ), we were determined to try and make our Thanksgiving as authentic as possible.

She and my grandmother told us how to make the few things we didn’t have written recipes for, so my mom gathered all of the ingredients and on Wednesday evening we began prepping for the busy day ahead.  Mom put the ham in the oven (yes, we do ham & turkey ;)) and I worked on making a pecan pie and together we prepped the dressing so that all we had to do was put it in the oven the next day to bake.

Ham’s in the oven

The pecan pie mixture (made with pecans from our front yard :)).  If this stuff didn’t have raw eggs in it, I would just eat it just like this :)

Homemade cornbread dressing…our favorite dish!  No pressure ;)

   

The finished pecan pie :)

The next morning, my mom and I got up about 8 am and began cooking.  We mixed, battered, measured until everything was FINALLY finished :)  I was so thankful that we had two ovens to use (mine and my brother’s next door) and that mom played sous chef and made sure all of the cooking utensils were washed and ready to go…my poor measuring cup was washed about 6 times!

I always tell my mom how it amazes me how people like Alex’s mom always say “Dinner’s at 6” and actually be sitting down for dinner at 6, with everything piping hot and ready to eat.  As much as we would love to be that person, we have never mastered that…until Thanksgiving.  We finished getting all of the food on the table, sat down, and I happened to look at the clock at it was noon on the dot…I was pretty impressed.

 

The spread (all homemade by the way):  Macaroni and Cheese, green beans, corn, BBQ turkey, fried potatoes, ham, rolls, cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole, pear cobbler, and pecan pie (not pictured here)  Sorry the decor is not more impressive…this year was focused on the food :)

I was very nervous about what everyone would think.  Like I said before, these are my grandmother and great-grandmother’s recipes and these are the ones you don’t want to mess up.  Surprisingly everyone loved it!!  There were a few things I would tweak, but no one noticed except me….YAY!  In fact, all of the leftovers were completely gone by the time my parents left on Sunday.

This year I was thankful for a lot of things, but I was very thankful that I was able to recreate my grandmother’s recipes for my family :)

Next up:  The Iron Bowl!