Life with my Lineman: Underdown Thanksgiving 2012

As you know I have been very excited about thanksgiving this year. I was excited to have a full day with Brandon, start some new traditions and COOK good food. I was pretty nervous but I felt like I could handle it. I took my hens out of the freezer on Monday so they would have plenty of time to thaw out. They still had ice crystals on the inside on Thursday and that kinda concerned me but they seemed to work out fine. I've always heard of needing to take the insides out, or theres a little bag...well I don't think that applies to hens, I couldn't find any bag but I found some pretty nasty inside stuff so I took that out. Brandon told me to "scrape it out like a pumpkin" but of course he wouldn't come to help at all!
Heres a couple things I learned this year :

The disposable pans will crack and leak juice all over your oven if you move them in and out of the oven. This will cause a lot of smoke....
In a 5th wheel you cannot pull the rack out "a little" to baste the hens....The rack will fall down and cause a big mess as you are frantically trying to keep your hens off the bottom on your oven and floor.....

Other than these two almost disasters the dinner turned out great! We had a little food.....

Two hens ( 5 pounds each)
1 small ham
Green Bean Casserole
Yams
Cranberry Sauce
Corn
Hawaiian Rolls
Deviled Eggs
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Stuffing
Apple Pie
Cherry Pie
Chocolate Cream Pie

Yes its a lot of food but I ran into a couple problems when I was making my list for Thanksgiving...I COULDN'T Leave anything out or it wouldn't have felt like thanksgiving. I am a HUGE fan of leftovers....I really think there is nothing better than a turkey sandwich with stuffing, gravy, mayo, pepper on my favorite bread...YUM!! I actually think the leftover sandwiches are better than the dinner itself so I HAD to make sure we had enough for leftovers. Brandon made fun of me and said "yeah you have to have your leftovers". This is our 3rd Thanksgiving together and he has ALWAYS made fun of me for needing my left overs. Well I served him up a plate of leftover thanksgiving yesterday and he was speechless, said it was amazing and just kept saying "yum, yum, yum" HA! so I guess someone will stop making fun of me for needing my leftovers now :)

Sure doesn't get much better than this... :)

I had to get a ham because Brandon really loves ham, I am not much of a fan but I couldn't leave it off the menu. I made the ham in the crock pot this year and it was amazing, even if I am not the biggest fan. I put brown sugar down on the bottom, ham on top, brown sugar and then a can of pineapple chunks and juice and let it cook for 7 hours on low. It was the most tender, sweet ham...yum!! And what about the sides, I HAD to have all the sides to make it a perfect dinner...so you see...you probably would have done the same thing as me :)

I did pretty well and had everything ready to eat at 2:45 and it was still hot :) I was worried about making my moms stuffing, her stuffing is my absolute favorite, I did alright I put too much poultry seasoning in but its still edible. I made Brandon's moms mashed potatoes (this is the only side he wanted) so I was extra nervous about getting those right but I did, he said they were perfect!!

So all in all it was a very fun day and I feel like an accomplished wife now that I have made my very own thanksgiving dinner in our 5th wheel kitchen none the less. Wait until I have a whole house with a full kitchen and oven!! :)

Lighting the pilot in the oven :)

The Hen all ready to go in the oven :)

"Just Basting my birds"

ALL DONE!! :)

Using my kitchen aid for Mashed Potatoes :)

Brandon carving the hen

Dinner is served!!

Happy Husband!

We relaxed after dinner and then we decided we would go check out black friday...when figured since we are in such a small town it wouldn't be so bad. Artesia only has 11,000 people in it so it was the perfect time. We went to Kmart cause they had a 50 inch TV for $288...well we stood in line for an hour and a half, we were at the front of the line and we didn't even get a TV cause they only had 6! We were pretty bummed so we headed over to Walmart and we got an iPad and a $75 gift card to Walmart and a 50 Inch TV for $225. Brandon is very happy now, all he wanted was a HUGE tv and recliners in his home so now he has both :)