Freckled Flair: Thanksgiving recipes!

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone by now but I thought I would still share my Thanksgiving with everyone. We are still getting settled in the new house, that is why there isn't a lot of blogging going on. I do plan on posting some decorating pictures once we are all settled but in the mean time here are some yummy food pictures and recipes to look at.

Since the house is not all set up just yet, we had a small Thanksgiving with just me and the hubs and my mom, mom's boyfriend, and my big brother. I only prepared the sides, I left the meat to my mom's boyfriend, who is also a butcher!

I made the most fantastic stuffing, at least in my opinion. I volunteer to make it every year, because I have tasted none quite as good as this one. You need an onion, 2 green apples, and 4 ribs of celery for the veggies in the stuffing, you will also need 3 cups of stock ( I used chicken), 1 lb of dry stuffing mix (I used Pepperidge farms variety) and finally 1 lb of sage sausage ( I used a reduced fat variety for the first time in the recipe and it was great).

I also made some traditional normal bacon and onion green beans, my brother doesn't like to experiment much with his food so I had to keep the potatoes and green beans normal, or at least normal according to my brother. For the green beans I just sauteed some onion and garlic with about 6 slices of center cut bacon until it was all soft and the bacon was beginning to crisp then I added 3 cans of green beans, draining the juice from 2 of them, also adding 3 cups of chicken stock and I let it cook away for probably 40 mins. Green beans like this can cook for hours if need be, on low heat.

For the stuffing you start with browning the sage sausage in some butter, then you scrape all that browned meat and drippings over top of the bagged stuffing that you would have dumped out in a large bowl.
Then you saute up the apples and veggies until they are starting to soften then mix in the broth and bring to a boil, you want your veggies to to be soft.

In the mean time getting to browning bacon and sweating onions for the beans.

Here were my traditional mashed potatoes, simply boil some potatoes and whip with a hand mixer and butter and low fat buttermilk, season with salt and pepper to taste. I love these traditional buttery potatoes!

I made the potatoes first cause that was something easy to keep warm or warm back up if need be. Then I did the stuffing and green beans at the same time, boy what a rush!

Once your veggies are soft you dump the veggies and broth into the stuffing/bread crumb mix and stir it up so the juices are distributed then pour it all out in a big baking dish sprayed with some cooking spray. The dish goes in the oven on 350 for about 45 mins but can go for an hour if need be.

I forgot the cranberry sauce, which no one in my family cares for anyway, but I did find this delicious bottle of white cranberry cosmo by skinnygirl, it's less than 40 calories per glass! It's white cranberry so it can't stain your carpet, blouse, table, etc.