Growing up Thanksgiving was always a big deal in my family. While in Jimmy’s family it was all about hunting. We always had big family Thanksgiving meals in my family. My mom always cooked dinner. When I was older I would help. I remember peeling a lot of potatoes. We had a lot of Dallas Cowboys fans in our family, so our dinner was planned around the game. My brothers would always have to check the wood stove during dinner so they could go watch the game. My mom would make turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, green bean casserole and homemade rolls. Pumpkin pie, apple pie and chocolate chip pie were for dessert. My family always thinks dessert needs to have chocolate in it.

Since Jimmy and I really didn’t have family traditions we wanted to carry on, we started some new family traditions. First we gave up the whole turkey meal. We decided since this is a Holiday, it should be a special meal and something we love. So we decided to go with steak and shrimp scampi.

I love sweet potatoes, so I make my delicious sweet potato casserole to go with my shrimp and steak!! Jimmy usually does some type of potato dish, some years it is french fries, other years it is roasted potatoes. We also add corn and a salad, it is all about some balance. One thing my mom did growing up was to save the corn from the corn on the cob. So I do the same thing. I take the corn off the cob and freeze it. For dessert it usually is what I had leftover from all my Thanksgiving orders, but this year is different. My favorite dessert for Thanksgiving is apple pie and Jimmy’s favorite is pumpkin cheesecakes. 

Usually on Thanksgiving we get up and workout or do a family walk or both. We watch football and play games. During halftime of the football games, we decorate the outside of our house for Christmas. Because I am already decorated for Christmas inside. I always wonder if my mom would be decorated for Christmas before Thanksgiving or if she would wait until the day after Thanksgiving. I think she would be but some of my siblings don’t think my mom would, because she loved Thanksgiving.

So here are the Thanksgiving recipes you can expect for this year. Pumpkin pie, mini pumpkin cheesecakes, apple pie, homemade pie crust, sheet pan apple crumb pie, rolls, sweet potato casserole  and shrimp scampi recipe. Of course I will have a cocktail and I am working on a few other recipes in the works.

That’s the Dish from my Kitchen to your Kitchen ????

Billie-Jo