This Won't Be Like The Norman Rockwell Painting...

Imagine the Indiana Jones theme music in your mind.....this is what I'm dealing with today. You might ask yourself why I would be hearing music in my head instead of the regular voices....I wonder that too. I think I know why.

See...Thanksgiving is pretty special. First of all, you get to eat. And not just anything but really good food. Second, my mother (the best cook in the world) is the one that cooks it. I may have mentioned before, I'm not a natural cook. I can follow directions pretty well, but I'd say that cooking doesn't come second nature to me. So you can see why I've never bothered to learn. My mother absolutely loves to cook. Really. I'm the smallest (weight wise) adult in my family if that gives you any idea of how much we like to eat and how good her food is.

But that's not the case this year.

My parents own a timeshare. They are spending this week at their timeshare in New Orleans. I'm happy that my parents are getting some time off. Not that they have jobs to be off from, but believe me they are incredibly busy for folks that are retired. So having mom that far away poses a real problem for Thanksgiving dinner. How is she gonna cook and get the food here from several hundred miles away?

Answer: She won't be cooking.

So I've decided to attempt the impossible and "cook" Thanksgiving dinner for myself, David, Raelynn, and my in-laws. My in-laws usually come to my Mom's for Thanksgiving too, because really, when I said she's the best cook, I meant it. She is highly regarded locally as an excellent cook. Since she won't be here, the responsibility this year rests on my shoulders. Did I already mention that I can't cook?

I've decided to just cook the things that I really like from Mom's Thanksgiving dinner menu that won't cause me to have a migraine and are relatively easy to make. Keep in mind that my mom's Thanksgiving meal starts in the morning at breakfast and lasts all day.

Here's my menu:

1) Breakfast casserole to be served for breakfast on Thursday. (This is delicious. It has eggs, sausage, cheese...yummm)

2) Veggies and dip to be enjoyed during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (We eat these pretty much all day while we wait for the food to cook.)

3)Turkey-I got a three pound turkey breast that says "Guaranteed Foolproof" on the package. It gives directions for cooking it in the oven and in the slow cooker. I will decide how to cook it after I call my mom on her vacation for the one thousandth time--all cooking questions.

4) Gravy of course.... homemade, not from the jar

5) My mom's famous fruit salad. This stuff is so good, you'll want to slap somebody.

6) Squash casserole-this is good...David loves it--very yummy.

7) My sister-in-law's English Pea casserole-This is the "green" element to the dinner. I haven't made it but it looks pretty easy. Famous last words.

8) My absolutely fabulous homemade mashed potatoes--with sour cream, green onions, and cheese, cheese, cheese

9) Cream corn-by far the easiest thing to make- Open the can and heat on a pot on the stove.

10) Southwest Salad- this is also my mom's recipe. I've made this a few times for parties, showers, etc and it never fails that someone wants this recipe. It's totally yum-o.

11) Rolls- hopefully I can juggle these and the other things that need baking at the same time

12) Tea-you might not have mentioned this but I don't make tea. I think I know how, but my father-in-law only drinks sweet tea, so I have to find the right balance of sweetness.

So you can see that this is a major undertaking for me. I hope that we all live through it to tell stories about it. If not, I guess this will be the radical diet plan (basically-food poisoning) that I've been looking for.

Keep an empty seat open for me at your Thanksgiving dinner table. If I can't get hold of my mom on the phone, I may need to eat at your house.