Families, Thanksgiving, and Food!

It's almost Thanksgiving.
What is Thanksgiving to you? For me, it's about giving thanks for the simple things in life. Good health, happy kids and grandkids, income, a warm comfortable home. I'm pretty basic. I don't need riches and jewelry and cool cars to be happy. Good thing because I'm not rich! I have always found that my happiest moments come from knowing those I love are happy and well.
Of course, I do love a good meal and good food, and love that about Thanksgiving as well. This year I will be celebrating Thanksgiving with my daughter and her family, with my son present as well as my two beautiful grandchildren who are the sunshine in my life. We will eat turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce like so many people around the U.S. will be doing. We all have our family favorites. Some people make bread stuffing, some make cranberry stuffing, wild rice stuffing, or in our case a pork sausage stuffing that my mom first started to make quite a number of years ago and has become a family favorite at holidays or any time when preparing a turkey or large chicken that will be stuffed.
Today I offer to you a few recipes that I have made and that I love to eat. They are all recipes that I have made many times over the years, all recipes that my family and I love. I hope you will enjoy them as well.
Here's a recipe that I make for dinner on occasion and has become a favorite. My son's friend who is in the Navy just recently asked me to pass the recipe along to him as he remembers having it at our home a few times and loves it.

Chicken Casserole

Cover the bottom of a 9x13 inch glass baking pan with cooked, diced chicken. Over this put a layer of broccoli (one bag frozen broccoli steamed and drained). Cover with about 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese. Over this spread one can undiluted cream of celery soup. Prepare one pkg. of Stove Top turkey or wild rice stuffing mix as usual and spoon over entire top of soup. Bake 30 mins. at 350 degs. Serve and enjoy!


Pork Sausage Stuffing

1/2 pound pork sausage meat, fried and drained
1 1/2 c. chopped celery
1 med. chopped onion

Fry above.

In big bowl mix:
10 cups. cubed bread (Italian or French)
1 clove minced fresh garlic
1 T. each of lemon juice, sage, thyme
1/2 T. salt
1 can Campbells beef consomme.

Mix all ingredients and stuff turkey as usual. This stuffing is SO good!

Copper Country Spanish Rice

Fry 3 large onions and one large green pepper and one stalk of diced celery til soft in a small amt of oleo.
Add 1# ground beef and fry til mixture falls apart. Stir in 2 cups can tomatoes, 1/2 cup uncooked long cooking rice, 1 tsp. chili powder, 2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, and 1/4 cup ketchup.
Pour into greased casserole dish, cover, and bake 1 1/4 hr. at 350 degs.

Cottage Cheese Jello

1 pound small curd cottage cheese
1 3 oz. pkg. jello or pistachio instant pudding mix
small can well drained crushed pineapple
1 8 oz. container Cool Whip
1 16 oz. can fruit cocktail or mandarin oranges

Sprinkle the dry jello or pudding mix over the cottage cheese. Add rest of ingredients. Mix well and refrigerate.
Ideas: orange jello and mandarin oranges
pistachio pudding mix and fruit cocktail
raspberry jello and fruit cocktail

And for those who love to cook, check out some of the cute aprons we have for sale at Peacock Cards!

Step Back Dad's Grilling Apron by Peacock_Cards
Browse Funny aprons Aprons

Loves to Cook Loves to Eat Apron by Peacock_Cards
Browse more Humorous apron Aprons

Moms Menu Eat or Starve Apron by Peacock_Cards
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B is for Baker by stick_figures
Many more kitchen aprons online at zazzle

Chef Girl with Wooden Spoon Apron by stick_figures
View more Kitchen Aprons

Customizable Stick Family One Apron by stick_figures
Make an apron online at Zazzle

Team of Reindeer by stick_figures
See other Stick Aprons

Merry Kissmas by christmasshop
See other Christmas Aprons

Daisies and Roses World's Best Mom by mom_gifts
See more Mom sayings Aprons

You Big Turkey!

I just looked down and saw that it's 30 degrees right now according to my weather bug, which is always right incidentally. 30! Thirty! That is technically cold enough to snow! It's not that uncommon at all where I live in the UP of Michigan to get snow before Halloween. I remember several Halloweens when it was an absolute blizzard. It usually melts and then arrives back again sometime mid November to stay. And then we'll see plenty of the white stuff right through April at least. I'm not exactly looking forward to it. Icy roads, more flu and colds, chapped lips and hands, heating bills, shovelling, scraping ice off windshields, what's to love? Well, there is the first snow, that's always very pretty. And of course there is building snowmen, sledding, the taste of big soft snowflakes falling on your outstretched tongue, the way the world seems to just slow down, moonlight on a clear winter night, the glisten of the sun off a frozen, iced branch. Ok, there are some good things. And then, there's always Thanksgiving and Christmas!
I have some good memories of Thanksgiving. It's always been a tradition in my family for someone to have big meal and have everyone over for dinner. The past several years my daughter has been the one to invite everyone, and things change as families change, but one thing is always a tradition with my family and most perhaps on Thanksgiving, and that is having a big dinner complete with turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. The smell of a turkey cooking while watching Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade...yum!
It kind of makes one wonder just how many turkeys are cooking that day across the US. I'd imagine quite a few! And so I did a bit of research to find out. According to Turkey Trivia at infoplease.com, the US Department of Agriculture says more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the U.S. at Thanksgiving—that's one sixth of all turkeys sold in the U.S. each year!
It's no wonder the turkeys are revolting! It's no wonder they are threatening to hide the murder weapon and hiring lawyers! No, I haven't gone insane, but I have had more than my share of laughs looking at these hilarious Thanksgiving turkey designs offered by Thanksgiving T-shirts And Gifts!

Mens T-Shirt - Thanksgiving Turkey Lawyer
by thanksgiving_tshirts

Kids T-Shirt - Thanksgiving Turkey Run
by thanksgiving_tshirts

T-Shirt - Funny Thanksgiving Turkey
by thanksgiving_tshirts