Day three - Thanksgiving prep

Day three of Thanksgiving preparation didn't get off to the best start. Somehow my mom missed the part about the dressing needing to go into the oven and she popped in a Gizdich apple pie - that required nearly two hours of baking time. So that tied up the oven until 8:30 p.m. Then I went to pull out the Italian sausage for the dressing - and it was frozen. So my dad offered to drive out to the store to pick up some so we didn't have to deal with defrosting it. We can always thaw out the frozen one another day for baked ziti.

Then we realized that the casserole dish we planned to use for the dressing leaves us without something for the green bean casserole I am making (from scratch) tomorrow morning. So that led to a search for another baking dish. We found one under a cabinet that had a paycheck stub and a box of pepto bismol inside...so guess we haven't used it in a while.

So after nearly an hour of browning sausage, sauteing vegetables and chopping fresh herbs, the dressing went into the oven. Cooking it tonight will free up the oven for the green bean casserole and, of course, the turkey.

We still have pies in the oven - not homemade but again from Gizdich. At this point, I don't think we are going to get to all the other items we expected to prep tonight - the cranberry sauce and the roasted garlic for the roasted garlic mashed potatoes. I'll just plan to get up early tomorrow and get started. Deadline is 2 p.m. to have everything done since that is around when dinner is traditionally served at my aunt's house. It might be a little like one of those cooking challenges tomorrow morning as we race to prep everything on time.

Photo by MELISSA FLORES

Dry Lake Dressing comes out of the oven crispy on top