Day: November 10, 2006

Not exactly a recipe, more a plan of battle.

In the past, I have gone so far as doing away with traditional Thanksgiving meal fare and simply cooked up a pot of chili, in an effort to keep the day as simple as possible and be able to concentrate on just being with family.

But alas! Lovely Daughter. especially, wants more traditional fare (and I suspect others of simply catering to the cook in not being so insistent). 🙂 So…

Here’s what I plan this year:

Lovely Daughter can bring her beloved green bean casserole, and while I’ll not make pumpkin pies this year, I’ll make pumpkin bread. As for the rest of the meal… *sigh* OK, some yams or sweet potatoes (although perhaps I can foist those off on LD, as well? :-)), cranberrry sauce (canned–I’m still going for easy, simple, quick prep) and…

In the rice cooker, a turkey breast in the bottom, in a bath of turkey gravy fixins, surrounded by cut up potatoes and topped with dressing. I’ll let it all cook together in the rice cooker for a couple of hours and report back later as to how it actually all came out.

Oh, the dressing? Frankly, I’ll probably buy a package mix and jazz it up with chopped onion, boiled eggs and celery (all made up ahead of time) with more freshly-ground pepper than any package includes (heck, none of them include ANY freshly-ground pepper), etc. Maybe some freshly-rubbed sage and such, as well. Pop some baby carrots straight from a rinse outa the package into the veggie steamer for the top of the ricve cooker and I’ll be good to go.

Simple. One or two pans (counting the pan for the pumpkin bread… made in the bread maker, of course). I don’t expect to use the ovens at all, except as warmers for the dish(es) L.D. may bring. Oh, I might dump the p-bread and bake up a fresh loaf of wheat bread for the meal as well… also in the bread maker.

Juuuust enough for us four and my parents, should they decide to “drop by” (230 miles out of their way–*heh*) for a visit.

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Two posts I highly recommend you read. One is the (one day early) Veterans Day Post at The World According To Carl. The graphic alone is worth the trip.

The other is found in Jerry Pournelle’s comments in his Thursday Chaos Manor in Review (page down a few paragraphs). His observations on the vote Tuesday are brief, considering his extensive knowedge and experience, but very important, IMO. A couple of paragraphs may whet your appetite, but I highly recommend CLICKing on over to read the rest:

As to the elections: the Republicans did not deserve to win. I do not believe the Democrats have earned the right to rule, and the very close election seems to bear that out: there’s no mandate here. The Republicans abandoned Reagan and his principles, and reverted to the typical Optimate attitudes of the Country Club oligarchs. They went on a spending spree to reward themselves for their labors in opposition, loosed a flood of earmarks, raised discretionary spending to new heights much of it for projects that make no sense, and made war on Federalism and states’ rights. Far from leaving things to the states, they decided to interfere.

Having abandoned fiscal conservatism and what I would call the conservative principles of the people I would have called conservative, they embraced the Trotskyite idealism of the neoconservatives. Trotskyite is a modern name for good old fashioned Jacobinism. Jacobins don’t really want “the people” to rule, of course; they are sure they know better what the people want than the people do, and if the people don’t realize that, why Rousseau himself told us that sometimes people must be forced to be free.

DO click over and read the rest. His is a much more moderate tone than I would take (have taken :-)), of course, but his knowedge, experience and historical perspective all lend real weight to his very reasonable views.

Also t-b-ed to Carl’s OTF.