Thanksgiving has always been one of my most favorite holidays – fall, food, family, friends, football, relaxation, and the fact that it’s a day of celebration and reflection for a very worthy, uplifting cause.
I woke up and started the day off at mass. I absolutely love going to church on Thanksgiving morning – taking that one hour to simply sit and reflect, to appreciate all the wonderful blessings we have been given over our lifetime and the past year in particular, and to say a few prayers in gratitude for the people and things that mean the most to us. I really, really love starting Thanksgiving in such a peaceful, beautiful, positive, community-driven, appreciative way.
The rest of the day consisted of tuning into the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for an hour or so while baking single-serving cranberry apple and strawberry rhubarb pies in mini mason jars (which we can freeze then cook – all in the jars – whenever a pie craving hits), watching our Green Bay Packers get slaughtered in the annual Thanksgiving Day football game against the Detroit Lions (which was just awful, although not unexpected, unfortunately), a magnificent Thanksgiving meal at Mario’s Restaurant in Pittsford (they do an absolutely phenomenal Thanksgiving spread, and spending all that time and money to cook a huge Thanksgiving meal really doesn’t make much sense when it’s just the two of us – all that great food plus no prep and no dishes sounds like a relaxing, winning plan to me!), calling to chat with all our far-away family to send our love, watching a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and a Garfield Thanksgiving, and playing a round of Wheel of Fortune on the Wii.
It was a beautiful, relaxing, delicious, and romantic day of gratitude. We always miss spending time with our families during the holidays, and we look forward to future holidays when we can be with them in person to celebrate (and eat my mom’s amazing broccoli cheese casserole), but sometimes it’s really nice to spend our holidays as a couple, just the two of us, relaxing and creating our own traditions.
** For the pies, simply purchase a pack of one dozen short mini mason jars, mix up a batch of your favorite pie dough and a few different batches of your favorite pie fillings, roll out your dough, press a small amount of dough into the bottom and sides of each jar, fill to the top with pie filling, add more dough at the top to cover the filling (lattice, full coverage, cookie cutter shapes, or, alternatively, a crumble topping), and seal each jar with a lid. You can pop the jars right into the freezer. Whenever you are ready to bake a few pies, take the lids off, place the jars on a baking sheet with a lip to prevent any sugary spill-over from junking up your oven, place pies and baking sheet in the oven, then preheat the oven to 375. Once at temperature, bake for 50-60 minutes. If baking fresh, keep the lid off, place jars on a lipped baking sheet, preheat oven to 375, then put pies and baking sheet in the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes.
** Check out the menu for Mario’s Thanksgiving spread here. Also, I was so excited for dessert that, in a rare moment, I completely forgot to take a picture of my dessert plate! My favorites dishes of the evening were the lamb, candied yams served in an orange half, spinach artichoke dip, sour cream and leek mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts with garlic and pancetta, cranberry sauce, seared salmon, stuffed mushroom caps, deviled eggs, butternut squash ravioli with sweet cream sauce, mussels and clams, cheesecake, chocolate fountain, and endless champagne. It sounds like I just named 3/4 of the menu, but I assure you, I did not. But really, everything was delicious.
I hope you all were able to enjoy a lovely Thanksgiving, celebrating what you are grateful for with those who mean the most to you!
