I made the Thanksgiving dinner for the first time this year. 
I’ve helped my mom with it before, like chopping up apples for the apple pie, peeling potatoes, and that kind of thing. But this is the first time that I was in charge of making everything myself.
Everything turned out great, I’m so glad that the chicken was tender, and not over-crispy like the Hawaiian chicken I made. The chicken was the first time that everyone in the house ate something I cooked, and it was a bit disappointing that it didn’t turn out too well. This time, though everything was very tasty.
I put a generous coat of chicken seasoning and butter over the top of the turkey. I stuffed it with boxed stuffing, which was softened by boiling water and a stick of butter. My mom had told me that she liked adding celery and onions to the stuffing, so I cut those up too before I stuffed the bird. There didn’t seem to be enough celery and onions in it though, so if I do this again next year I’ll have to remember to add more. That didn’t stop the stuffing from tasting delicious though.
I really stuffed the apple pie. My mom had gotten a dozen apples, and I cut up all but two for the pie. The apples usually settle during baking, but I stuffed so many in there, it caused the top of the pie to rise off the crust a little bit. I gave the top of the apple pie a little bit of an artistic edge by adding dough around it to create a rippled effect on the edge. I’m glad my mom was there when I was making the pumpkin pie, as I had to change a few things before baking it. First off, I put a top on the pie, like I did the apple pie. Whoops. Then I had a momentary brain freeze as I was mixing it, as I didn’t add the spices to the mix even though the recipe called for it. It didn’t taste too good, and I mentioned it tasted kind of tinny, then my mom mentioned the spices, and I had a duh! moment, and added it in.
The mashed potatoes were made the same way I made the mashed potatoes for the side dish with the sloppy joes. Lots of peeled potatoes, lots of cheese, and lots of garlic. This time though, I remembered to add butter, so the potatoes were even better this time.
I stayed up until 8AM so that I could make sure the turkey got in at the right time, so I wasn’t up when the preparation period came. My mom handled that, and added a few dishes of her own. She made up a chocolate cream pie with chocolate pudding and a store-bought graham cracker crust that Matt loves. I must say, I have become quite attached to it myself. And of course, no Thanksgiving meal would be complete without cranberry sauce.
We had green beans for veggies, but I thought about it afterwards and realized that we didn’t have a Thanksgiving staple this year: corn. And I love corn! It all was delicious though, so the feast definitely made up for the lack of corn goodness.
