Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love gathering family and friends to celebrate life's goodness with good food and conversation. Things have been remarkably different for us over the last few years. The "Holiday Hens", as my brother in law called us, have been disbanded. One moving out of state, another simply retiring from the planning and execution of big gatherings. Last year found me in a tent with other volunteers cooking turkey dinners on donated gas grills after Sandy ravaged our community.
This year marks a new era for our family Holiday traditions. My eldest daughter decided she would like to host this year and her cousin, not to be outdone, has decided Christmas will be at her home. We have a new brood of "Holiday Hens." And so far, they have proved very capable. All of which helps me since I have taken on responsibility for managing our parish soup kitchen and the holidays require extra attention from me.
The Allrecipes Ambassadors were asked to prepare a casserole made from leftovers and Kraft Foods products. I kept looking at the recipe http://allrecipes.com/recipe/thanksgiving-leftovers-casserole/detail.aspx and thinking it could easily be adapted so I could serve a more festive meal to our vegetarian guests at the soup kitchen Thanksgiving dinner than the usual plate, stripped of turkey and gravy.
Since we would need about a dozen vegetarian meals we made two large pans, lining them with Stovetop Cornbread stuffing prepared with extra onion, celery and grated carrots. We filled the cavity with chopped Portabella mushrooms, sautéed with garlic and onions and liberally sprinkled with shredded Kraft Italian blend cheese. We topped this with mashed potatoes, piped into rosettes by one of our amazing staff and dusted with paprika. After baking at 350F we presented our guests with as appetizing a meal as their carnivorous friends ate.
Thank you Kraft and WalMart for helping make this holiday a little happier for those in need.
Note: this is Kraft's photo as we do not permit photographs in the soup kitchen.
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November is far from my favorite month. The days become so much shorter unless you are a morning person, the weather is unpredictable day to day, but leading inexorably to the snow and cold of winter. Personally, I much prefer May with its promise of summer. But I am basically an optimistic person so I look for the good things November brings.
There are two holidays in November, which are intertwined for me and many others. The first is Veteran's Day and it makes me sad that we have so much hoopla over Halloween and just sort of gloss over Veteran's Day as another money maker for retailers. Originally called Armistice Day, it commemorated the end of WWI. In 1954 President Eisenhower was instrumental in renaming it Veterans Day to encompass WWII and Korean War vets. In 1971 some bureaucrat decided to tidy the calander and move holidays to make long weekends. That seemed to be when the respect diminished. Then we had the country's distaste for the Vietnam war and those vets just got shuffled along, out of sight, out of mind. Fortunately, good sense prevailed in 1978 and it was moved back to November 11th to be commemorated in the US along with UK and Canadian Rememberance Day.
Several of the men in my family served our country, despite being the world's most unlikely warriors. They did it because at the time, it seemed to be the right thing to do. My son is the only one still living and with his usual, nonchalant attitude, doesn't see himself as anything special. I disagree. While ALL my children are special, he went halfway around the world to have people he never met try to kill him and he them. I understand war in a philosophical sense, but my head and my heart do not - particularly when my first born is involved. I want the world to spend part of just one day reflecting on what our Veterans have done for us and at what cost.
Instead of shopping the mall take those few extra dollars and make a donation to Wounded Warriors or Team Rubicon. Thank you on their behalf.
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