Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a WONDERFUL day here at the East Coast Eckert’s house! I even have PROOF!

I got up this morning and started making dinner rolls. They’re the pioneer woman’s recipe. They are seriously yummy. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

Still don’t believe me? Try them yourself. They do take awhile to make, but they’re super simple. Its just time spent watching dough rise, or grass grow, or paint dry….whichever is your preference really.

Then I got the turkey into the turkey slow-cooker-roaster contraption (BEST $20 spent EVER.) with help from this lady:

And then mom and I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon preparing the rest of the feast. Andrew and Dad watched the Packers and Lions play. Andrew (obviously) pulled for the Packers (or he’d be disowned by his family).  Dad (obviously) pulled for the lions (just to make Andrew mad).

I present (drum roll, please)….the feast!

Now, I should mention at this point that there were only four of us….

There was turkey! (This is only half the turkey…)

Sweet potato casserole (I think of you every year BFF) and greens!

Grape Something! (Yes, something. Don’t question. It’s delicious.)

And dressing. Dear goodness how I love dressing. I wait for Thanksgiving every year for the dressing.

The dressing comes with a bit of a story that I feel is worth telling. You see, its my dad’s mom’s recipe. Well, mostly. When dad grew up and got interested in having the recipe, he asked his mom. To put it simply, there was no recipe. It was one of those “a little of this, a little of that, mix it until it looks right, put it in the oven and cook it” kind of recipes. So my parents spent a LOT of years trying to duplicate it. From what I hear, it was quite the ordeal. And it must have been, considering the top of the recipe I’ve been handed says “1996, This is it!” Yeah, that’s a lot of years of trial and error. And then today I’m making the dressing with supervision. Biscuits cooked from scratch yesterday? Check. Stick of butter? Check. Wait. Why does the recipe just say “celery” and “onions?” How much? In what order am I mixing these ingredients? Have I been tricked?! I’m pretty sure it was dad that tricked me. Look at this tricky guy!

But not so fast. I’ve now written things down. I have measurements. And let me tell you, this batch was a huge success.

We had a great time cooking. And now we better equally enjoy eating leftovers. Some of those dishes still looked EXACTLY like that when we slid them into the refrigerator after our meal.

Nutty’s pleased with the idea of us sharing those leftovers….

(Truthfully in this picture, he appears to be saying “what in the world are you doing mom”…but we’ll ignore that…)

We are truly thankful for all of the wonderful people in our lives. We’ve said it a thousand times this year, and we’ll keep saying it…we don’t know how we would have made it through this year still smiling without the love and support of our friends and family.  So we now present to you our cheesiest Thanksgiving grins. You only have yourselves to blame.

Happy Thanksgiving :-)

Happy