Thanksgiving: Thankful for not Cooking?

Thanksgiving is a culinary Super Bowl for me. I personally start prepping and planning at the end of September, right when Halloween decorations start inundating local stores. This year I scoured websites, pulled pages out of magazines and salivated over Pinterest. However, we traveled this year to Connecticut to visit my husband's side of the family and my sister-in-law who was kind enough to turn over her house to all of our crazy, said Thanksgiving was all taken care of.

I was excited and sad all at once. No early morning prepping. No agonizing over turkey doneness (if you saw last week's Top Chef you know even chefs have bad turkey moments). No juggling of times and peeling and, and....no cooking Thanksgiving?! What would I do without that stress to fuel my culinary fire?

You know what I did? I enjoyed every last bite of that delicious dinner that my very awesome sister-in-law ordered from Whole Foods. It made a plate that looked like this:

And a leftover turkey and stuffing casserole that I made that looked like this:

And a turkey salad club that looked like this:

And potato pancakes that looked like these:

And THIS is how I celebrated my last evening with my family, during the Thanksgiving holiday. 

No drama. No stress. No back-breaking mixing and chopping. No pacing the kitchen. Lots of time to enjoy moments like this:

There are many a Thanksgiving dinner left in the future for me to cook . So far though, the best time I have had, has been the one I didn't.

MacGyver Night

I will admit that I loved MacGyver and never missed an episode (we won't talk about the pictures of Richard Dean Anderson in my locker) but who would have thought that the word "MacGyver" would become a part of our slang? If you have never seen an episode (or never owned a TV), MacGyver could escape a Turkish prison with a paper clip, some chewing gum and a shoe lace. To "MacGyver" is to take what you ordinarily have on hand and make something new.

So tonight, was my MacGyver night and usually, like tonight, it is the night my husband isn't home and experimentation doesn't affect anyone but me! So, I took a look in the fridge and cabinets. In the fridge I found leftover cooked whole wheat rotini pasta, fresh spinach, chopped bacon, and leftover diced onion. In the cabinet I found a jar of light Alfredo sauce I keep meaning to try. So I sauteed that bacon and onion in a little olive oil and then wilted that spinach in the mixture. I heated up a 3/4 cup of the sauce with the pasta in a small pot and then added the other ingredients. Add a salad on the side from the Romaine hearts I always have on hand, and Voila, dinner is served. Not a rocket ship out of a paper towel tube and hairspray, but it was delicious!