Thanksgiving 2011

So, this Thanksgiving we celebrated twice. On Thursday we had dinner with some friends of ours and their family. But on Friday we had our annual big Navy Thanksgiving (we had it on Friday because some of the guys had duty on Thursday. boooo). Everyone contributed at least one dish. We… kinda went overboard because we both LOVE to cook! Here is what we made

Stephan made

• Pumpkin pie
• home made whipped cream
• Dia’s Cranberry Salad
• A Turduckenhen (2 Cornish game hens inside a chicken  inside a duck inside a turkey.) This was a joint effort between him and Daniel

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I think it looks kind of disturbing, but apparently it tasted awesome!

I made

• Chocolate Bourbon Pecan pie (http://cookwithfarrah.wordpress.com/category/dessert/)
• Lynchburg Apples (now dubbed “Drunken Apples”) (http://cookwithfarrah.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/lynchburg-candied-apples/)
• Mulled Cider Cranberry Sauce (http://cookwithfarrah.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/mulled-cider-cranberry-sauce/)
• Candied Sweet Potatoes (http://cookwithfarrah.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/candied-sweet-potatoes/)

I apologize for the links being out next to each item. For some reason WordPress is not allowing me to make text  links. I will attempt to fix this again in the future.

So that was our contributions to the amazing Thanksgiving  feast! Sooooooooo full. But happy. And tired.

Mulled Cider Cranberry Sauce

I have never made my own cranberry sauce before, so this year I figured I’d give it a shot. Sooooo much better than out of a can! And pretty easy to make. Never buying cranberry sauce ever again, that’s for sure! I got this recipe from RealSimple.com

Mulled Cider Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 (12 oz) package cranberries
• 1 3/4 cup apple cider (apple juice will work, but cider is always better!)
• 1 cup honey (give or take to taste)
•  2 cinnamon sticks (2 tbs (or to taste) cinnamon. Sticks are preferable, but the ground cinnamon will work )
• 1 tbs grated orange peel
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 whole cloves

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients together in a heavy sauce pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce heat and simmer until the berries burst and the sauce thickens. Be sure to stir occasionally or you will get a lot of pink foam overflowing. Original recipe says about 15 minutes… I cooked mine on low/medium heat for an hour. Granted, I made a double batch. Just something to keep in mind. Take out the cinnamon sticks, bay leaf, and if you can find them, the cloves. Serve warm or cold. Ours was a bit warmer than room temp, and it was stellar!