 Happy Thanksgiving Eve!!! Clearly, I'm way too excited about this made up holiday that I think we should all be celebrating.🤣🦃 Seriously though, why is Thanksgiving Eve not celebrated as much as Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve?🤷🏻♀️ Anyone who's ever organized or prepared a Thanksgiving meal, would probably agree that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving should be designated as a national day of baking and cleaning. A special day set aside for everyone to chip in and help with meal and house prep. 😅 Who can help me write this bill to submit to congress?🇺🇸  Speaking of meal prep - I've been prepping dozens of dishes to get ready for tomorrow's big meal. Pumpkin pies, french toast, spinach dip, stuffed mushrooms and this amazing chestnut and ciabatta stuffing are just a few of the recipes on my list. I think this new and unique stuffing is pretty great but I'm really excited to see how this dish is received by my guests tomorrow. 😬  Chestnut and Ciabatta Stuffing 6 Tablespoons butter 8 ounces pancetta, diced 2 onions, chopped 2 carrots, finely chopped 2 Tablespoons rosemary, chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 (7.4 ounce) jars roasted, peeled whole chestnuts 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped 1 pound day old ciabatta bread, cut into 3/4" cubes 3/4 cup parmesan 1 cup chicken broth salt and pepper 2 eggs, beaten
  Cover with buttered foil and bake 30 minutes at 350. Uncover and bake 15 minutes longer.  Ciao!
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 As a general rule, if you tell me that you don't like a particular food, I will make it my mission to change your mind. 😅🤦🏻♀️🙃 I'm not saying that it's the right course of action - I'm just letting you know that it's what usually happens.😂 Just ask my daughter in law who accidentally let it slip one day that she wasn't a fan of vegetables in cakes.🥕 Fast forward a few months later to the night I served her a slice of zucchini mayonnaise three layer chocolate cake.😬🎂 The kicker was that I didn't actually tell her the ingredients until after I got her honest reaction to the cake. (Thank goodness she's such a good sport because she also doesn't like mayonnaise.🤣) Turns out - as long as she didn't know that the cake was made with mayonnaise and vegetables - she actually like it. Mission accomplished. 😅  This Thanksgiving I will have a house full guests- most of which are not fans of cranberries. This well known fact is based upon years of serving a bowl of fresh cranberries alongside my Thanksgiving turkey every year that goes almost completely untouched. Normal people would just forgo the tangy fruit but as you probably already figured out - that's not my style.😂 This year, I decided to double down on the cranberries that I'm serving. (I know that have a problem.🤣) I am going to be serving my guests cranberry sparklers, cranberry jelly, cranberry brie bites, cranberry oat bars and if all that fails, I'm throwing in some sugared cranberries. Who can resist fruit that's soaked in sweet syrup and rolled in glistening sugar? Even if it is a cranberry.😅 This Thanksgiving, these little gems will be scattered around my dessert table and drink station and who knows, maybe they'll be just the thing to turn some of my family into a cranberry lovers.  Sugared Cranberries 2.0 1 1/2 cups cranberries 3/4 cup water 1 1/4 cups sugar
Let cool 30 minutes or refrigerate cranberries in syrup up to 2 days.
 Let dry on paper towel lined plate for 1 hour. (Store, uncovered, at room temperature for up to 24 hours.)  Ciao!
 Did I ever tell you about the one year that I tried to serve sweet potatoes instead of mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving? My family staged an all out revolt.😂 Hear me out though while I explain my reasoning: Sweet potatoes are superior to white potatoes. I mean, sweet potatoes sweeter than white potatoes - what more do I need to say?😅 If given the option, why would anyone choose a white potato over a sweet potato?🥔🍠 Selfishly, it never even occurred to me that my family would even notice that there were no traditional mashed potatoes on the Thanksgiving table.🤷🏻♀️ I figured that if I made these orange infused mashed sweet potatoes with a sweet and crunchy streusel topping, no one would ever miss a big bowl of white potatoes. I was wrong.🤣 Apparently, these sweet potatoes are not meant to take the place of regular mashed potatoes but they're intended purpose is to be served alongside them.🤦🏻♀️ Now I know. 😂  I know I'm going to take some heat for this but in my opinion, mashed potatoes are fine but I feel like they're kind of like the Honda Accord of the vegetable world. They serve a purpose and they have a place but sweet potatoes are more like Cadillacs.🚘 😅 In all seriousness though - I would encourage you to give this sweet potato recipe a try. It's super tasty and as long as you don't try and use it as a white potato replacement, I think your Thanksgiving guests will agree.  Sweet Potato Crunch Potatoes 6 pounds sweet potatoes, poked with a fork 6 Tablespoons butter 2 Tablespoons Grand Marnier 1 1/2 Tablespoons brown sugar 1 3/4 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons grated orange zest Topping 1 cup flour 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt pinch of cayenne pepper 6 Tablespoons butter, melted
  Ciao!
 Last year was the first year that I ever made a complete Thanksgiving meal for a client. It was a lot of fun but I was really nervous.😬 Thanksgiving is the holiday when we eat our most nostalgic foods.🍗🥔🌽🥖 We serve grandma's pretzel salad and aunt Linda's famous pecan pie and cousin David's special green bean casserole simply because it's what we've done every year. Some of the dishes we don't even like but we continue to serve them because Thanksgiving just wouldn't be the same without them. 🤷🏻♀️ So how was I supposed to make a Thanksgiving meal for someone else's family without knowing any of their long standing Thanksgiving traditions? Luckily, this client gave me free reign to make whatever I thought would be best and told that my recipes would be the start of some new Thanksgiving traditions for them. I was still nervous. Thanksgiving food is personal and I certainly didn't want to step on Grandma's toes by making a different (ie wrong🤨) version of her infamous turkey dressing.😅  Whether you refer to this as stuffing or dressing really doesn't matter in this case. The more important question is do you like bread, cornbread, rice, sausage or oyster based dressing. Each family seems to have their favorite dressing and whether its by choice or appointment - there seems to always be one person in every family who's been designated as the official dressing maker. I have my own theories about dressing preferences being regionally specific but I have no scientific research to back those up so I'll keep them to myself. For now.😅😉 What I can confirm is that I have a lot of Georgia friends who prefer cornbread stuffing alongside their Thanksgiving turkey. This wasn't something I grew up with so it was new to me but I've got to say - it's pretty delicious. If you're looking for a new dressing recipe for your Thanksgiving table this year - consider this Sausage Cornbread Dressing. Just a warning though: This is so good that if you make this for your family - you might just become the designated dressing make from now on.😂  Sausage Cornbread Dressing Cornbread 1 1/2 cups flour 1 1/2 cups cornmeal 3 Tablespoons sugar 1 Tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 3/4 cups whole milk 3 eggs 6 Tablespoons butter, melted Dressing 6 Tablespoons butter, melted 12 ounces andouille sausage, cut into 1/4" pieces 2 onions, diced 2 bell peppers, chopped 2 celery ribs, sliced thin 4 slices bacon, cut into 1/4" pieces 1 Tablespoon Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning 2 garlic cloves, minced 3 cups chicken broth 1 cup whole milk 3 eggs, beaten 3/4 cup chopped fresh parsley 1/2 teaspoon pepper
 Bake 35 minutes at 425.  Ciao!
I launched myself into full Thanksgiving mode last week. I started prepping some of the side dishes and then I decided that this would be the perfect time to taste test our Thanksgiving cocktail for this year too. I mean, somebody had to do it.🤷🏻♀️🤣 Not sure when I started the tradition of serving a signature cocktail for Thanksgiving but I'm not gonna lie - I kinda love it.🍸 It just seems to make the day seem for festive somehow. This year's Thanksgiving cocktail is a Cranberry Sparkler. The best part is that it can also be made into a mocktail for guests who prefer it without the alcohol. I tried it both ways (because why not?) and I can tell you that they're both delicious. 😋  Cranberry Sparklers are a great way to get hesitant cranberry eaters to give the classic Thanksgiving fruit a try. These sparkling cocktails are slightly sweet and super refreshing. As if the festive pink drinks weren't pretty enough, I also added a sugared rim to the glasses of my mocktails to make them even more appealing to apprehensive guests. If you make these for Thanksgiving this year, I'd love to know how you serve them. I chose a wine glass and a couple of champagne flutes to serve my sparklers but I also think these would be fun to serve in a margarita glass or a fancy whisky glass. I'd love to see pictures of the creative ways that you serve your cocktails this year.
 Cranberry Sparkler 4 cups (16 ounces) fresh cranberries 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 cup water 4 cups (32 ounces) prosecco, chilled (or sparkling water)
 Garnish with extra cranberries.
 Ciao!
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