I noticed that there were no stories about Thanksgiving here and we also need more recipes, so I thought you all might like to hear about Felorin and Emerald Flame's Thanksgiving! I love to cook and have been helping with Turkey Day dinners since I can remember; I've been making the dinner on my own since I was 18 and I won't tell you how long that's been. ;) Over the years I've refined family recipes and made up ones of my own --  I mostly cook about the same thing each year, more or less, depending on how many we have. We always seem to have one challenge or another for dinner, too. Last year it was cooking at Felorin's parents house, and using all organic food and having no microwave.

This year we had Felorin, myself, Gar, Emrys Romani, and Kunnis for dinner. It was good we didn't have more because I was struggling with an awful little gas oven from our new house (yes, I plan to try and replace this before next year!). I knew I'd have to do the baking the day before, but I got a late start and with rolls and four pies, all being cooked one at a time, it was six in the morning before I gave up and went to bed. I'd made the apple pie all decorated with pastry leaves and a carving of an apple, but hadn't had time to cook it. When I woke a few hours later, I asked Gar to put the pie in the oven for me. I had forgotten to tell him to put tin foil under the pie -- the crust had melted a bit overnight and parts fell to the bottom of the oven along with the sugary filling. Felorin went to check on it just in time to see flames leaping out of the oven! It set off all the smoke alarms and discolored the microwave. It was scary, but we got the fire out and laugh about it now. It didn't do much damage and even the apple pie lived. ;)

Okies, now for the dinner, a slightly later than usual dinner! It's like a festival on Furcadia, no matter how much you plan ahead, something always goes wrong and it's a little late. ;p

I almost always get a Butterball turkey -- the young ones are best. They come with everything you need and good instructions for cooking. I especially like their little lifting tool they include. They are also always juicy and tasty! Don't forget to remove the giblets and cook over a low flame in chicken broth for a few hours. Add some garlic, sage, thyme, pepper and a bay leave to the broth. You will use this later in the gravy. I also always stuff my turkey. A trick for even browning (When you have a good oven) is to make sure the skin is very clean and then rub it with a good quality oil before baking. When I serve the turkey its on a nice plate with red lettuce leaves around and red, sugared grapes for garnish. The grapes are easy to do, just rinse them, set on a paper towel and sprinkle with granular sugar. It gives a nice festive look and they are edible.

The dressing is one of my favorite things at dinner and I have a recipe I made up myself years ago. I cook up one package of seasoned wild rice mix. Then mix this with a 16 oz. package of seasoned corn bread stuffing mix. I like Pepperidge Farms' the best. Then I fry one pound of Jimmy Dean sage sausage and add that to the mix, leaving the drippings in the fry pan. Using a food processor I chop up an onion, 4 cloves of garlic, a couple of celery sticks, a couple of carrots and two green apples. I fry them in the pan with a stick of real butter until the veggies are tender. Toss these in the mix. (yes, you need a big bowl). Add 2 eggs and enough chicken broth to get the wetness you like in stuffing. I forgot the eggs and didn't add much broth this year and the stuffing was a bit crumbly, but I like it that way. (Felorin likes moister stuffing) Stuff the turkey and put it in to bake! You can cook the rest the stuffing in an oven safe dish or in the microwave. Make sure to heat through if you've added eggs!

This is the last thing I make right before I serve dinner. I make a giblet gravy and make sure to make a lot extra so we can put it on leftovers. I either chop up the giblets and neck meat or put it in the food processor (Do the food processor if someone thinks they don't like giblets, like Gar;). I add this and the broth from the giblets to a sauce pan. Add more chicken broth to equal 3 cups of liquid. Add in the drippings from the bottom of the roasting pan. In measuring cup, mix together 2 envelopes of Shillings onion gravy mix, one table spoon of corn starch and a half cup of water. Stir until fairly smooth and add to the sauce pan. Heat the sauce to boiling, stirring constantly. It will thicken and turn clear as you cook. Its ready to go in a gravy boat and be served!

Do these no more than an hour before dinner is served. I make unique mashed potatoes that are a favorite of Felorin's. I always add a lot of other vegetables besides potatoes to the boiling pot. I really like to use butter gold potatoes and leave the skins on. You need to judge how many to use depending on how many purrsons you are serving. (Hint: Guys like a lot of mashed potatoes;) This year I added parsnips, carrots, onions and plenty of garlic cloves to the pot and cooked until the veggies were soft when poked with a fork. Use a mixer to mash up the veggies. Even better, get your sweetie to do it since you will probably be very busy at this point. Felorin's a great help in the kitchen and even Gar helped out. Add a half stick or so of butter and half and half to the veggies while mixing. (Use low fat milk and less butter for everyday, but make it extra tasty on holidays!) You can also add some fresh, chopped chives and parsley near the end of mixing. Whip until light and the consistency you like. Sprinkle the top with paprika before serving and add a sprig of parsley for garnish. Nummy :)

These are a favorite of mine! Make sure you buy real sweet potatoes and not yams. Get ones from the produce section and make sure they are all roughly the same size and shape. (This helps for even cooking) Cook these before the mashed potatoes. They can reheated heated up in the microwave fine. Wash the sweet potatoes and put them in a large pot. Cover with water and a lid and bring to boiling. Boil until they are soft when a fork is stuck through the largest part of the potato. Drain the hot water and run cold water in the pan to cool them off. When cool enough, rub them to take off the peels. Put them in a bowl and add brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and whipping cream to taste. I like to add some chopped pecans or walnuts too. (When my son's not there as he's allergic to them.) Put in a nice serving dish and add a some halved nuts and/or cinnamon on top for garnish. (Yes, I garnish everything. I like the table and food to look finished and pretty.)

I only use frozen baby, petite peas from a good name brand for this. Cook them right before dinner over a really hot fire with steam. Don't over cook them. Add in a paw full of slivered almonds before cooking and butter and salt and pepper when serving. Very tasty!

This is an old family recipe. I can remember my grandmother making them and I taught my daughter how. They are a rich crescent-shaped dinner roll that's my favorite thing about most holidays. I usually triple or quadruple the recipe to make sure there's plenty to last awhile. I also often make one batch into cinnamon rolls or a jam filled tea ring for the holiday morning.

Ingredients

1 package active dry yeast (rapid rise)
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup milk, scalded (This means to put in a pan and bring to boiling)
1/2 cup butter flavor Crisco shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 1/2 to 4 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
3 beaten eggs
Preheat oven at 400 degrees.

Preparation

Soften the active dry yeast and a teaspoon of the sugar in warm water. Combine hot milk, shortening, sugar and salt; cool to lukewarm. Add 1 cup of the flour with a mixer. Add yeast mixture and eggs. Beat well.

Stir in remaining flour (or enough to make soft dough). Turn out on floured surface; knead lightly 5 to 8 minutes.

Place dough in greased bowl, turning once to grease surface; cover and let rise till double. Turn out on oiled surface. Divide dough in thirds; roll each third to 9 inch circle. (I like big rolls and will often do one circle per batch.) Brush with softened butter. Cut each circle in 12 wedge pieces; roll each wedge, starting with wide end and rolling to point.

Arrange rolls, point down on greased cookie sheets; brush with melted butter.. Cover and let rise till very light (about 45 minutes/). Brush with a mixture of egg and water and sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired.

Bake in hot oven 400 degrees 10 to 12 minutes. Be careful not to burn the bottoms!

To make these into cinnamon rolls or a tea ring, take the dough from one batch and roll into a rectangle. Add butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and nuts thickly on the surface for cinnamon rolls, being careful to leave a strip at the end closest to you without toppings. Roll from the top towards you, forming a log. Pinch the bare end onto the log to seal. Cut into rolls and put in a pan. Let raise until fluffy. Bake until done in a 375 oven. For the tea ring, use your favorite flavored jam (I like homemade cherry at Christmas) instead of the butter and sugar mixture. Roll into the log sealing carefully. With this one you attach the end of the log together to form a circle and only cut 3/4's of the way through with each slice. Them turn each piece to the side a bit to form a wreath look. Cook the same. When cool you can glaze with a whipping cream and powdered sugar mixture. Decorate the tea ring with cherries and a bow for Christmas morning.

Cranberry sauce is always Ocean Spray whole and jellied sauce. I don't really like home made cranberry sauce. I'm not sure why we always serve pickles and olives, but we just always have. They have to be the smallest dills and sweets you can find and green and black olives. I like to pick out really nice green olives, usually stuffed with almonds. The celery sticks are cut up and filled with a cheese recipe I made when I was 10 or 11. Mix together 1 package cream cheese, 16 oz finely grated sharp chedder, 1/4 cup parmesan, garlic powder, chopped chives and parsley. Fill the celery sticks with this, its very tasty. All these things go into special glass dishes that I've collected over the years and have garnish added to them.

This is the whole dinner and we usually serve it all at once family style so that no one needs to get up to get each course. We set the table very prettily with good dishes and cloth napkins with rings. Felorin and I don't drink much so we usually serve non-alcoholic sparkling cider in wine goblets. Felorin gives a toast to friends, family, food and Furcadia and we eat! There's enough food not to have to cook for several days. We played Settlers of Catan after dinner this year. I usually win but I was glad to see Emrys win this time. Then I whipped up fresh whipping cream with powdered sugar added to go on top and we had our pie.

I always decorate my pies with cut out leaves and shapes around the crust. Felorin and Gar helped a lot with the pies this year, making the fillings while I made the crusts. Pie crust is easy. Just cut together 2/3 butter Crisco, 2 cups flower and 1 tps salt for each crust. Add enough water until the mix holds together. Roll out and use glass pie plates. Just use a knife to cut out some leaves and shapes to decorate around the edges of the pie. I just follow the directions on the pumpkin can for pumpkin pies and followed the directions on the corn syrup for the pecan (First year we made this. Felorin mixed it up and forgot to melt the butter. The pie was tasty, but didn't set up well.) For apple pie I always use granny smith apples, about 6 or 7 sliced up. You will want to overfill the crust. Add 2 tsps cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1 cop sugar and 1/2 cup of flower. Fill the crust and dot real butter slices around the top. Draw an apple in the top crust before putting it on, making sure to pierce through in a few spots. Sprinkle sugar on top and cook 50 minutes in a 400 degree oven. *winks* Be sure to put tin foil on the rack under the pie and watch it close while cooking!

Happy Holidays from Felorin, Emmie, Gar, and all of us here at Dragon's Eye Productions.