What’s on the menu?

Looks like we are all enjoy getting the freshest food possible as we prepare for Thanksgiving! I have to say this is the first year EVER that I have not made a plan. I’m normally planning the holidays as soon as the calendar flips to September. In previous decades it’s been lists of planning crafts and fun snacks for Halloween. I should be planning a menu for Thanksgiving, but in all honesty – don’t we all generally have the same thing each Thanksgiving with a few new recipes added in over the years? I’d be more than happy with a table of my favorite side dishes.

I found his grandma’s banana pudding recipe this week. How horrible is it that I’ve only made boxed mixes in our 37 years together when it was his families favorite dessert? Homemade vanilla pudding poured over (store brand) nilla wafers and sliced bananas and then topped with more nilla wafers. And yes, we sampled the corner before getting that photo taken!

When it comes to coordinating gift ideas with actual shopping and keeping track of what I already picked up in the summer, I have to have a list for holiday gifts. I found a recipe for cheesecake cookies when I started the baking and crafting ideas sectioin. I didn’t like the texture of the cookie but look how nice that red cherry looks on my new plates from the Buy Nothing Site. They will be perfect for a fancy holiday cupcake and they have a West Seattle story, they were used at the old Alki Tavern, a link to neighborhood history.

I checked one more thing off the holiday list. I dried the lemon verbena from the herb garden and am infusing it into sugar for holiday gifts. It smells divine and I’m thinking it will be great stirred into tea or sprinkled on a sugar cookie just before baking AND now I’ve been able to harvest something from everything in the backyard this year. The gift list is pretty well finished, though nothing is wrapped, I’m not THAT organized for heaven’s sake!

#thanksgiving #mealplanning #cheesecake #lemonverbena #lemoninfusion #bananapudding #seagull #westseattle #alki #alkitavern @https://buynothingproject.org/ @https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Seattle #holidayplanning #liveyourbestlife #homeiswhereyouparkit #prepare