Last of the Leftovers

In honor of the last of our Thanksgiving leftovers, which will be finished today, I thought I would share this year's Thanksgiving menu:
Turkey- Steve (the turkey) was really stubborn about getting his temperature taken. You know in the sitcoms when a kid wants to stay home from school so his mom gets the thermometer and he holds it up to a lightbulb or something? Well I think Steve must've had an ice pack with him because he was in the oven for over 4 hours and still wasn't hot enough. We ended up eating it anyway and nobody is ill, so I think that proves my turkey-thermometer-tampering theory.
Fried Turkey (made in our back yard by one of our guests) It was so salty that one bite raised your blood pressure at least 3 notches. But still delicious.
Mashed Potatoes- I finally got a potato masher so they were a little bit better than in years past. I used 8 potatoes and 15 cloves of garlic and about half a bottle of Mrs. Dash and they were still pretty bland. I guess that's the nature of a potato, but I wonder why other people's mashed potatoes taste so much better than mine.
Whipped Sweet Potatoes with Caramelized Apples- Made these last year too and they are good! People are happily surprised to taste the apple-y sweet potatoes, even if they are accustomed to the gooey marshmallow goodness.
Sausage Stuffing- This is easy. You brown some sausage and add it to Stovetop. You can still tell it's Stovetop but it tastes so much better. I think anything tastes better with Italian sausage though.
Corn Souffle'- I love it, and everybody who tries it loves it. How could you not love something that contains a whole stick of butter and a half-pint of sour cream?
Green Bean Casserole- One of the guests was just delighted to see that the good ol' green bean casserole was topped with the little crispy onions rather than...Cheez-Its??? Interesting. I'm still in search of THE Green Bean Casserole recipe. This year, I cut down on the Velveeta my recipe called for (because I sent David to the commissary with the grocery list and he didn't know what Velveeta was. It's Pasteurized Processed Cheese Product, for Pete's sake! I will concede that it is difficult to find in the commissary, so it might have thrown him off if he was expecting to see it near the cheese. Whoever designed the commissary decided that cheese and cheese product should not mix.) Anyway, so I had to use the itty-bitty bit of Velveeta I had in the fridge (and cut off the hard crusty part) so I used probably 1/8th of what the recipe called for and you know what? It almost tasted like real GB Casserole! Apparently it was good, because there were no leftovers! And that is one of my favorite leftovers to eat!
Cranberries- I like to do cranberries with mandarin oranges & pecans in them. Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without the jellied kind with the can ridges, so we had those too.
David was in charge of the ham. I do not do ham because I think it looks like the inside of your knee when you take a bad fall off a bike. It makes me gag and I refuse to make it. David was going to make it but Steve was taking so long that he decided not to (or at least that was his excuse).
David was also in charge of the rolls. David is pretty smart. Why didn't I decide to be in charge of something that I could just rip open the bag and set on the counter? Oh yeah, if I were in charge of the rolls, I would have heated them up before serving. And I probably would've put out some butter too. But I wasn't in charge of rolls. That gives me a pretty good idea why I put myself in charge of all other aspects of the meal.
One of our guests brought homemade mac & cheese. I don't remember mac & cheese ever being a part of our Thanksgiving traditions, but this mac & cheese was so good I think I might have to make it one. It was creamy & delicious.
Dessert-
Pumpkin Cake- This is the food that made me like pumpkin. I've been eating it since 7th grade at the home of one of my best friends. Everyone who tastes it loves it, which is really a shame since I absolutely will not share the recipe. We can't have everyone running around making Pumpkin Cake or mine won't be special.
Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream-broke out the ice cream maker again (and David said we'd never use it!) This was very good, and of course everyone was surprised & impressed that we had homemade ice cream! I didn't tell them that aside from the turkey, this was the easiest thing to make. Mix some stuff in a bowl, pour it in the ice cream maker and turn the dial to "on" for 25 minutes.
The Ultimate Caramel Apple Pie -or shall I say The Ultimate Caramel Apple Pie Disaster? Oh. My. Ga. (Watch Will & Grace?) Um...not real sure what I did wrong here. I think I shall blame the Okinawa weather. (What will I do when I can no longer blame the Okinawa weather for kitchen failures?) My pie is basically sliced apples floating in red wine that has turned not-quite-clear and covered with crust. That's not what the picture looked like. I had to put it in the pasta drainer before throwing it away. Sad, sad, sad. Especially because we bought 16 apples for the pie. It called for 8, but David put the first batch in the freezer to preserve them. Bwahahahahaha. Another reminder of why I should happily delegate all Thanksgiving responsibilities to myself. If it were up to David, we'd have chicken wings and french fries in the fry-daddy. Gotta love him.

All we still have as leftovers are mashed potatoes (which I considered making potato pancakes with, but it's so much easier just to toss them in the microwave for a quick heat n' eat) and mac & cheese. I know what I'm having for lunch today!