Thanksgiving Eve

Tonight I baked two loaves of bread (one for the stuffing, one for the table), roasted and pureed four sugar pumpkins for pie, and made a 1/2 gallon of homemade vanilla ice cream. The theme this year is Thanksgiving on the Farm. For the first time, I won't be opening cans of green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and fried onions for the green been casserole. Nope, I'll be using fresh organic green beans, mushrooms, chicken stock, and my own caramelized onions. I'm roasting and creaming corn for the scalloped corn casserole. I'm making the stuffing from scratch, right down to the fresh sage, thyme, and rosemary from the spice garden. The only remnant of my Minnesota upbringing that will grace the table is the Jello salad. I'm using fresh fruit instead of canned fruit cocktail, and yogurt instead of Cool Whip, but I just can't think of an acceptable substitute for the Jello itself.

So, here I sit on the night before Thanksgiving, feeling ambitious and inexplicably smug. But check in with me 'round this time tomorrow. I'll either report that Thanksgiving on the Farm (a) was amazing and not really any more time-consuming than my old way of doing things, (b) was significantly more time-consuming but well worth the extra work, or (c) was a colossal disaster and a waste of time and ingredients. I guess we will see if I can kick the cans.