Meal Plan • 2/21/16

• Monday: Corn & Black Bean Tacos
• Tuesday: Chickpea Curry with Brown & Wild Rice
• Wednesday: take-out
• Thursday: Baked Ziti with Ricotta, Lemon-Basil Bruschetta
• Friday: leftovers
• Saturday: Baked Cheesy Apple Sandwiches, Salad
• Sunday: Every Man for Himself

The past two weeks have been nothing short of madness around here, full of work deadlines and social events and back-to-back appointments, and a client crisis that completely took over my life for three days.  I swear, there was a period of about a week and a half in which I only managed to cook dinner and get us all to the table together maybe twice.  That was a little embarrassing to admit, but there you go.  

Sometimes, life goes wacko, and you have to just throw your hands in the air and say, "Wheeeee," and ride it out.  Homeschooling fell by the wayside.  Laundry did not get done.  Errands were forgotten.  I haven't gone for a run in thirteen days.  And I said, "I'm sorry," about 57 more times than usual.

Life just got very life-y, you know?

We are slowly, ever-so-carefully reeling things back in now, but if I were to be completely honest, I should maybe just admit that being thrown for a loop is not as unusual of an occurrence as I like to make it out to be.  There are four humans living in this house, after all, and we are juggling three businesses and the education of the two youngest humans, and we all have hobbies that captivate us, and life is full and wonderful and interesting and our schedules are meant to be fluid and maybe I need to stop holding on so tightly to the idea that I might one day have it all together.

We are self-employed.  We homeschool, for crying out loud.  Our lives will never be predictable and simple and boring, and that is exactly why we chose to do these things.

For obvious reasons, there was no meal plan for the past two weeks.  We ate out a few times, we brought home pizza, we made simple, easy, I-can-cook-this-with-my-eyes-closed meals on some of the evenings.  The world did not come to an end and the kids did not starve, but it is just not optimal for us to fly by the seat of our pants when it comes to dinnertime.  So it feels goooooood to make a meal plan for this coming week.  

Still though, if I learned anything over the past couple crazy weeks, it is that having a handful of back-pocket recipes at the ready is crucial.  Back-pocket meals for us are the ones that don't have too many moving parts (no one needs to manhandle more than two pans on the crazy days), that use ingredients we keep on hand almost all the time, that can be made easily by either of the adults, that are healthy enough, that can simmer unattended long enough for me to run into another room and practice yoga for 15 or so minutes, and that do not take much time overall.  I am slowly adding these types of recipes to a special section of my recipe binder so we can flip there in an emergency without even breaking our stride (and let's be honest, just having a bad day can constitute an emergency).

Some of our current back-pocket favorites:

Crunchy Black Bean Tacos

One-pot Broccoli Fettuccine

Kale & Cannellini Bean Risotto

Black Bean Chili

Blueberry-Pecan Pancakes and Creamy, Dreamy Cheddar Grits

Knowing these easy options are available in a pinch has completely changed the way I respond to Emergency Days.  And if I'm freaking out less, the whole household runs more smoothly.

Quick Lit • February 2016

My to-be-read list has exploded over the past couple months, which gives me a certain sense of security.  There is, quite literally, nothing as satisfying to me as (1) knowing what I will read next, and (2) having my next vacation already planned.  Well, those things and whether I have a nice selection of teas in the kitchen.

And having a stash of good quality chocolate (this is starting to make me sound much more high-maintenance than I like to think of myself).

The Books on the Nightstand podcast, and Anne Bogle's new podcast What Should I Read Next? have introduced me to a ton of new titles, and I recently relaxed some of my spending freezes to allow for more book purchases (life is short, and books are worth it).  It was on one of the WSIRN podcasts that a guest mentioned the Book Passage book subscription club, and when I saw that two of my favorite books of last year were on it, plus another two of my favorites from 2014 were on the previous year's list, I began reading my way through the rest of their back catalog.  The choices have so far been splendid.

Today, I am linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy to share short, snippet-like reviews of the books I have read over the past month.  

Set in the 1930s, Euphoria is a novel about the intersecting lives of three young anthropologists who have settled in among isolated, unstudied tribes in New Guinea. Inspired by events that took place during three months in the life of Margaret Mead, the action focuses on the work of the married couple Nell and Fen at the time they station themselves near Bankson, an anthropologist who has been alone for a few years and who has lost hope in his ability to make a mark in his field. The tale is told through the POV of two of the characters as events occur, but also through flashbacks from one and journal entries from another. This structure builds exquisite tension, and the book is a quick, beautiful read. 

The Unfortunate Events series is captivating and great fun as a family read-aloud. The Reptile Room, continuing the story of the three orphans and the terrible events that befall them at every turn, brings more death and suspense and absurdity and laughter, and is written just as cannily as the first one. My eight-year-old is madly in love with the characters and we had a fabulous time reading this installment. Bonus: the vocabulary and the witticisms provide much fodder for discussion.

A young adult novel that is set in Nazi Germany and is narrated by death himself may seem particularly dismal, but The Book Thief manages to be both luminous and dark, both serious and light-hearted. At 552 pages, and taking place over about five years, the book traces the story of a young girl who is sent to live with a foster family in a poor neighborhood in a terrifying time in history. Forged relationships are a powerful force in the novel, as are stolen books, and the constant and overwhelming presence of a tyrannical government. The language is gorgeous, and there were sentences constructed so beautifully that I wanted to tuck them away in my memory forever. 

Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist takes place during the 1999 WTO riots in Seattle. The novel alternately takes the point of view of the police chief, two radical protestors, a Sri Lankan minister of finance, a couple of over-eager cops, and a young man who finds himself more deeply embroiled in the conflict than he meant to be. The action occurs over the course of only one day, and the tension builds skillfully as the day goes on and as the the chapters skip around between the main characters. I keep hearing comparisons to The Flamethrowers, but Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing is what kept coming to my mind, as the reader helplessly watches the characters each make choices that bring them closer to what you can only imagine will be more explosive than they intend. Both the tension, the prose, and the character development are masterful, though I found the ending to be a little unfulfilling.

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Meal Plan • January 31

• Monday: Creamy Avocado Pasta
• Tuesday: New Year's Noodle Soup, crusty baguette
• Wednesday: (leftover soup & bread)
• Thursday: Golden Bowl, brown rice, steamed kale
• Friday: Spaghetti with Fiery Marinara, lemon-basil bruschetta
• Saturday: Kale & Cannelini Bean Risotto
• Sunday: (I don't cook on Sundays)

Oh, friends.  I'm trying something WAY outside of my comfort zone, and I'm a little nervous even to speak of it.  Some friends and I have signed up for Wanderlust 108, and while that may not sound surprising (it is a yoga festival, after all)....

THERE IS A 5K INVOLVED.

That's right.  A 5k.  Like, as in running.  With my own two feet.  Crazy talk, I tell you.

Y'all, I can do yoga all day long (and I have before, many times), but running is a whole 'nother thing.  It's just not in my wheelhouse at all.

I am determined though, and since the worst-case scenario is that I end up walking most of it, I think it's worth a try.  I have downloaded the Couch to 5k app, and I completed the first three days this week.  It was not easy, and each minute of running left me panting and red-faced and feeling like an idiot (not an unusual feeling for me), but it's also a little bit awesome, and I have learned a few things so far.

1. My dog is way better at running than I am.
2. The right music is crucial (right now, it's Beck's Midnite Vultures).
3. I am going to need a better pair of sneakers.
4. Doing a post-run-recovery yoga practice afterwards is the only thing keeping me alive (yogaglo has some that are perfect for this).
5. I am going to need more calories each day.  More avocados, more nuts, more brown rice & whole wheat pasta...).

This week's recipes were chosen for their ease (Monday's pasta is super easy and extraordinarily quick), for their nutritional punch (beans & spinach in Tuesday's soup, beans & kale in Saturday's super easy risotto), and for the extra-healthy complex carbohydrates (every day).  Bonus: these are all family favorites as well.

Running may be absurdly difficult for me right now, but I'm stoked about having a new goal to work towards - especially with friends - and I feel fabulous.  Also, the cardio has ramped up my metabolism again, so that extra handful of pounds I gained over Christmas and that decadent trip to Savannah this month have already fallen off (yay), and I am once again sleeping like the dead every night.

Onward, I say.  One foot in front of the other...

Quick Lit • January 2016

The post-Christmas lull was a glorious and relaxing time to fit in some good reading this year, and I took full advantage of every single luscious minute of it.  Included were a couple of books that knocked my socks off, a marginal book that made very little impression at all, the first in a very well-written detective series, more than one dystopian novel, and a children's book that I've been meaning to read for approximately a million years.

Today I am linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy to share short, snippet-like reviews of the books I devoured over the past four weeks.

Our Endless Numbered Days is an unusual and intriguing twist on the ubiquitous dystopian novel phenomenon.  In this novel, the eight year old narrator is taken into the wilderness by her father and told the world has ended.  For years, they live off the land, hunting and fishing, and living in a ramshackle off-grid cabin somewhere in the mountains.  Her father is a disturbed man, and the tale takes some disturbing turns.  Suspenseful and a little dark and twisty.

I wanted to love The Bookseller, because stories that present alternate lives for the characters usually float my boat, but this one was trite and predictable.  The protagonist, a single woman who owns a struggling bookshop with her best friend, begins to live a different life for herself in her dreams at night.  In this other world, she is married, has children, and is not involved in the bookshop.  The writing is just okay, and the ending - which I imagine is supposed to be the big twist - is unsurprising and ultimately disappointing.

Fates and Furies is such a breathtaking work of fiction that I am having a difficult time finding the right words with which to do it justice.  The writing is so stellar that each sentence begs to be savored, yet I devoured the 400-page novel in less than 24 hours.  It is the story of a marriage, yes, but also a tale of what lies beneath the carefully-composed surfaces, and of all that we hide even from ourselves.  There are twists, and the book is structured in a phenomenal mirror of the title itself.  This is easily one of the best books of 2015.  I will read it again.

A haunting, unforgettable debut novel.  In Did You Ever Have a Family, the story begins as four people perish in a house fire.  The point of view changes multiple times, as the aftermath is told by different people who were either peripherally or integrally part of the lives of those who died.  The intertwining lives and the ties that bind a community are both lovely and bleak, and while you might expect the book to be filled with nothing but overwhelming grief and sadness, the story itself unfolds slowly, expertly, and with remarkable restraint.

Book One of Kate Atkinson's Brodie detective novels is decidedly different from her most recent and deservedly best-selling novels, less epic in scope and not quite as mind-blowing in structure, but no less delightful.  Case Histories is more literate than many in its genre, even though it sticks to the relatively formulaic flawed protagonist, and it effortlessly juggles a handful of story lines that neatly converge as the tale progresses (maybe too neatly, but I was enjoying the book too much to quibble with its neatness).  Witty and fun.  I will definitely seek out the next books in the series.

The Dog Stars (yet another post-apocalyptic novel) takes place nine years after a flu has killed off much of the country's population (possibly the world, but that is unknown).  Hig, a former carpenter and hobby pilot, lives out West with one companion in an old small airport, and spends his time fishing, hunting, and flying his plane around the area on scouting missions.  The narration is unusual and almost diary-like in that there are incomplete sentences, missing commas, and inconsistent verb tenses at times.  This is clearly intentional, and the book is imminently readable, though the action is very slow at times (also intentional, it seems).  The ending felt a little abrupt, but I enjoy end-of-the-world fiction and found the restrained style of this novel to be intriguing.

Gloomy, funny, and completely ridiculous, The Bad Beginning had both me and my eight-year-old enthralled from the start.  Very fun read-aloud, but perhaps best for children who don't take things too seriously.  This is a tale of absurdly terrible things that happen to three siblings whose parents die tragically on, like, page two, but it is narrated with lightheartedness and acerbic wit.  Fabulous.  Can't wait to read the next one to my daughter.

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Meal Plan • 1/4/16

• Monday: Black bean & spinach enchiladas
• Tuesday: Red lentil dal, brown rice, spicy cornbread
• Wednesday: leftovers
• Thursday: Torta di pasta, bruschetta
• Friday: take-out
• Saturday: Miso Noodle Soup
• Sunday: Every man for himself

January is coming on like a freight train, friends, and I'm eking out the last couple minutes of relaxation before jumping in head first.  We have had the loveliest of holiday seasons, restful and rejuvenative, and oddly productive as well, but the busy time starts in five...four...three...

Actually, I think I've gotten pretty good at juggling the January madness in recent years.  A confluence of work deadlines happens for me at the end of this month, but rather than panicking this year, I happily agreed to a little five-day getaway that will fall right in the middle of the busy month, and I'm feeling pretty good about it all.

Don't get me wrong.  By the 20th, I will be in the middle of a full-on panic, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to miss out on the fun.

For now though, I am stoked about putting the pedal to the medal next week and Getting Things Done.  The meal plan and grocery list are ready to go, my brain is rested and excited about getting back to work, the lesson plans are ready for the kids to return to their own work, and I have even idiot-proofed my daily yoga practice by choosing to practice along with the daily featured online classes at Yogaglo at least until the payroll tax deadlines have been met.

Like I said,  I'm feeling pretty good.

Meal Plan • 12/28/15

• Monday: Crunchy black bean tacos
• Tuesday: Stir fry zen crunch bowl
• Wednesday: Smoky potato cakes, Salad
• Thursday: Chili lime noodles
• Friday: Hoppin' John (vegan), spicy cornbread
• Saturday: Italian egg sandwiches, salad
• Sunday: Every man for himself

The wheels came off over the past few weeks, as they do this time of year.  With everything on our schedule during the month of December, even bothering with a meal plan seemed overly ambitious, and so on the few nights each week in which we found ourselves all at home for dinner, I went for the quick and easy.  The kind of meals that can be made from pantry ingredients or that can be thrown together with whatever happens to be in the vegetable crisper.  It was exhausting and not as nutritious as I might have liked, but the meal plan just wasn't the mountaintop I was willing to die on.

Now though, it is Magic Week, those lovely days between Christmas and New Year's when work is easy, obligations are few, and time seems to be irrelevant.  Most of my clients are out of town or have gone quiet, I have suspended the kids' homeschool lessons for a few weeks, and my car is in the shop (again) so we are mostly tied down to the homestead for a little bit anyway.

Plus, I could use a little time to regroup.  I'm not much for New Year's Resolutions, but I do like to take the time every four months or so to tweak and adjust our schedules and our commitments, and to do a little planning.  New Year's is a natural time for this sort of reflection, but since I operate on more of a school-year kind of calendar (can't help it - I live in a college town) than a traditional calendar, I look at this particular time as a mid-year chance to pull in the reins and idle for a bit to evaluate what's working and what isn't.

One of the first things that jumped out at me that is working is the meal plan.  January is the beginning of my busiest season of work of the year, and that means I need to idiot-proof as many things as possible in order to avoid meltdowns (because sometimes, the center does not hold).  Re-instituting the plan now that Christmas is behind us was already on my radar, but it is nice to recognize the absolute importance of such a seemingly trivial activity in our lives.

Interestingly though, one of the things that isn't working is my list of reliable recipes.  Many have become boring to me, and boredom in any aspect of my life generally spills over negatively into other aspects, so clearly it's time to restore a little adventurousness in the kitchen.  Obviously, busy nights are not always terribly conducive to trying new recipes, but sometimes, changing my focus from numbers and reports to some time spent piddling in the kitchen with new flavors and techniques is just what I need to decompress from work.  As well, exercising a little creativity helps to remove blocks when I am struggling with a troubling desk project.

With those things in mind, and with the free time stretching so luminously ahead of me this week, I happily spent the better part of the day yesterday seeking new recipes.  Thus, five of the evenings this week have been filled with recipes I am excited to try, and it looks like we might actually be home together every night to enjoy some unhurried time at the table.

Magic Week is bliss. 

Quick Lit • December 2015

(from Book Character Day at their homeschool academy)

This time of year, the evenings and weekends always seem so busy with holiday parties, the kids' performances, Christmas family gatherings, and (in my case) end-of-year accounting duties.

These activities, while (mostly) fun, seriously cut into my prime reading hours.

I was a little chagrined when I realized I only read three books in the past four weeks (a clear sign that my priorities are out of whack), but we are carefully setting aside some staycation time between Christmas and New Year's, and I am actively putting together a stack of books along with some good teas and snacks.

Today I am linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy to share short, snippet-like reviews of the books I have read over the past month.

Big Magic is a joyous celebration of creative living.  While it isn't exactly a roadmap for becoming creative, it is an informal invitation to jump headfirst into a life that is more open to artistic expression.  Through delightful anecdotes and an irreverent view of Important Art, Gilbert essentially invokes the reader to just get to it.  The book is entertaining and imminently readable, and ultimately inspiring.  My favorite takeaways from the whole thing are the ideas that we should take our creativity less seriously, work more diligently, and simply follow our curiosity.  Because it is presented in one-to-three page vignettes, I think Big Magic would make for delicious daily devotional reading.

Black Chalk was very nearly un-put-down-able.  The novel is described as a psychological thriller, but it isn't of the heart-racing variety one might expect by the use of the word 'thriller.' The author is a puzzle editor, and that shines through so well in both the expert pacing of the action and the slow and steady way in which secrets are revealed.  It takes place on campus at Oxford, and the tightly-drawn characters are both highly intelligent and a little dark-humored (think The Secret History, but not in a derivative sense).  Excellent debut novel.

What a luminous, phenomenal, rich work of narrative art.  Rare is the contemporary novel that reads like an epic tale, but this one seems destined to become a beloved classic.  Peace Like a River is narrated by an eleven year old sickly child who travels with his highly-literate little sister and his God-fearing gloriously-drawn father to the Badlands of North Dakota in search of his fugitive teenaged brother.  The story is laid out with such restraint that the reader scarcely notices the suspense and the slowly-building tension.  It reads almost like a literary Western, though that description does it little justice, and ends with some of the best-crafted sentences I have had the pleasure of reading.  Highly recommend.

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Meal Plan • 11/30/15

• Monday: Linguine with hot pepper, caramelized onions & gremolata, served with lemon-basil bruschetta
• Tuesday: The Any-Vegetable Frittata (made with whatever veggies are in the crisper), roasted Brussels sprouts
• Wednesday: leftovers
• Thursday: Creamy spaghetti with blue cheese, spinach, & walnuts (the linked recipe calls for escarole, but I prefer to substitute fresh spinach)
• Friday: The musician is cooking, but he cannot be pinned down to a specific recipe at this time
• Saturday: Baked mac & cheese, Braised green cabbage
• Sunday: I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I don't cook on Sundays

It happens every year after Thanksgiving.  I lose all interest in cooking for a few days, and I am still so traumatized by the crowded grocery stores from the week before that I refuse to shop until the kitchen has been completely laid bare.  

Thus, this week's menu is based entirely on (1) what gets me out of the kitchen in the least amount of time, and (2) what can be thrown together with what's already in the fridge & the pantry.  Frittatas are great for using up things like the last bell pepper in the crisper drawer, the single potato that didn't get roasted last Thursday, the last 2 ounces of mozzarella, the single stalk of fresh chives, etc.

And then there is that lonely bag of fresh spinach still in the refrigerator from the night before Thanksgiving.  That was the evening when I was too busy baking pie and chopping fruit for the next day's feast to make the pasta salad I had planned, and so I sent The Musician to pick up pizza instead.  That spinach will be perfect for the creamy spaghetti with blue cheese recipe.

Recipes that clean out the fridge are my faves.

The Musician will be staging as the guest chef on Fridays for the next few weeks while I teach a dinner hour yoga class, but he prefers the creative leeway to surprise us at the last minute doesn't plan that far ahead, so details are scarce for that night.  

Is anyone else even bothering to cook this week?  I'm not even all that hungry...

Thanksgiving Menu Planning

Thanksgiving meal planning can be a bit of an ordeal, but our family has inexplicably turned it into a rather stress-free affair.  Our family is LARGE, you see.  Rather absurdly large, as a matter of fact (ahem, large in terms of numbers, that is, not weight).  And Thanksgiving is quite literally the only thing we do en masse that is mostly without stress.  We have learned some tricks.

Some very valuable tricks.

Grandma roasts a couple of dead animals, and Preston fries one.  The bird does not at all interest myself nor my mother (at whose house we hold this affair), but the sides, well, that's where we excel.

When you have a family as large as ours, it is par for the course to have at least 50 guests (some years, it's more like 75 or so), and so a few of us go a little crazy with our contributions.  Mom will make a restaurant-sized pot of rice, and will throw in more rolls than you can shake a stick at.  Then, depending on the year, she'll also make a few spinach quiches (my favorite) and/or a big pan of macaroni and cheese.  My sister will make the biggest broccoli casserole you've ever seen, a few pumpkin pies, and a plateful of peanut butter fudge that will virtually vaporize before the main course has been consumed.

Grandma, even though she will have already worked herself to the bones over a couple of turkeys, will also make the gravy, the sweet potato casserole, the green and the red jello casseroles, and, if I've been a good girl, The Carrot Cake to End All Carrot Cakes.

And someone will open a can of cranberry stuff and squirt it out onto a small plate, with the can indentations still proudly showing off.  I have tried valiantly to break us of this habit.  I have made a cranberry chutney, cranberry preserves, and even a cranberry conserve, but it doesn't matter what I do.  Someone will still slide out a can-shaped mound of canned cranberry stuff.  So I have given up.

Over the years, I have tried all sorts of recipes, including slaving away for literally half a day making my own cream of mushroom soup FROM SCRATCH, and then FRYING MY OWN ONIONS in order to make the BEST GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE EVER, but I have learned my lesson.  No one liked that casserole any better than the one in which I used Campbell's and Durkee's, so, you know, screw it.

A few years ago, I made a mushroom and wild rice pilaf that I thought would be a flop (but which I was willing to make because I thought I would have leftovers to live on for the next week) and it was a hit.  The pan was scraped clean.  I made it again the next year, and I'll be making it again this year.

Last year, I roasted three or four giant sheet pans worth of vegetables, and in another shocking turn of events, I watched my siblings snack on the brussels sprouts and turnips like candy.  That one will make an encore appearance this year as well.

Oh, and then there's my very favorite fall fruit salad.  I don't know if anyone besides my mother, my children, and I like it, but I cannot imagine a Thanksgiving without it now (and it is splendid for breakfast the next morning).

I will also be baking a new pie this year.  As much of a success as the chocolate-espresso pecan pie has been, David Leibovitz recently posted a recipe for a bourbon-ginger pecan pie, and that recipe was quickly moved to the top of my list for this year.  It will be the only unproven recipe in my repertoire though, because frankly, the tried-and-true family favorites are the easiest to pull off.

So, here's to Thanksgiving, my friends, the only holiday in which we gather together to do nothing but share a meal, count our blessings, and revel in each other's company.  We give thanks for the food before us, for the friends & family who are with us, and for the love between us.

Our Thanksgiving Favorites:
Preston's favorite fried turkey brine and technique (I don't eat meat, and cannot vouch for this)
Wild Rice and Mushroom Pilaf
Simple Roasted Vegetables for the win
Chocolate-Espresso Pecan Pie
Autumn Fruit Salad (I like to add in a few handfuls of pomegranate seeds)
David Leibovitz' Bourbon and Ginger Pecan Pie

Meal Plan • 11/23/15

• Monday: Black bean & corn chilaquiles with roasted tomato salsa
• Tuesday: Golden bowl with steamed kale (we like to layer it: brown & wild rice on the bottom, kale next, tofu cubes on top)
• Wednesday: Corn, spinach & bell pepper pasta salad
• Thursday: Thanksgiving (this is going to required a whole separate post - meet me back here tomorrow?)
• Friday: Thanksgiving leftovers + a giant green salad full of fresh vegetables
• Saturday: Make-your-own pizzas (see below)
• Sunday: Every man for himself

It can be so easy to forget to plan healthy meals for the week of Thanksgiving (or even to cook anything at all, frankly).  All thought seems to go into Thursday's feast, but I try to take a bit of an opposite approach.  I love Thanksgiving - it's one of my favorite holidays - but I always feel a little overstuffed afterwards and kind of can't wait to get back to my normal way of eating.

We have a ginormous feast at my mother's house, with millions and millions of side dishes and way too many desserts.  Sometimes Grandma even makes my favorite carrot cake, and after that, I go right ahead and eat a few too many pieces of my sister's peanut butter fudge.  Then I sit around until I feel a little less roly-poly, and that's when I belly back up to the counter for another plateful of vegetables that didn't find their way onto my plate the first go-round.

It's embarrassing.  And I never learn.

What I have learned though, is that there is nothing I crave quite so much as fresh vegetables the next day.  Crunchy, leafy, glorious raw veggies.  Thus, the great big salad (you know, to go with whatever other leftovers I managed to steal home with).  

By Saturday, I will be craving foods that have nothing to do with holidays, so I'll break out the bread machine to make some pizza dough, pull out some fresh mozzarella, defrost some marinara, and we will clean out the fridge to find toppings.  

Tomorrow, I'll pop back in to share my favorite Thanksgiving recipes.  I don't make turkey, of course, but I have a tried-and-true short list of side dishes and desserts that I can't wait to make again this year (along with a new recipe that has me all sorts of excited).