Every year, when Thanksgiving is over and the dishes are all cleaned off and put into the dishwasher, and the folks have gone back to their house and it's time to just sit down for the first time all day, I say to myself, or anyone else nearby,

"This is the LAST time I'm doing Thanksgiving here. Next year we are going out for dinner."

I do. I say it every year. And every year it gets more imperative that we do that because my physical state gets worse and worse.

This year, a few weeks ago, I mentioned to Paul, after we'd had his folks over for a simple regular style dinner, that I CANNOT and WILL NOT do Thanksgiving dinner this year here. It just hurts too much.

He shrugged.

Of course, time has gone by, and even though my aches and pains haven't subsided one little bit, I am reconsidering my decision, and so I told Paul to tell his folks that I will, indeed, cook Thanksgiving dinner this year. But we need to make it simple and go slowly. And he needs to help me, especially with the house-cleaning part. I can't do both. Not any more.

Then, with this in the back of my mind for the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to come up with a simple menu for Thanksgiving. And the other day it came to me, out of the blue, like it was sent by "Olive," my personal angel-assistant-guide.

POT PIES!





I love pot pies.

I don't make them very often, in fact hardly ever, but I occasionally buy them all made from the store. The other night I had leftover cooked chicken breasts and lots of leftover cooked veggies, so I just added a can of Cream of Chicken soup to the veggies, added the cut-up chicken, and served it up - no crust. About half-way thru the eating of it, and finding out that Paul loved it as much as I did, it dawned on me that this was basically chicken pot pie but without the piecrust! Then "light dawned on Marble-head."

Thanksgiving!

Chicken And Turkey Pot Pies! I have my menu!

Of course, I'll tweak them a bit for the special day. I'll make two, one of each, and they will be good sized. I may throw in some asparagus, too, because we all love that. Oh, and some butternut squash cut up in cubes. So many options! My brain has been going in overdrive since this revelation hit me! I am so psyched!

I can make them ahead of time, too. We can have some nice rolls with them (per Paul's request, personally I don't really like rolls with dinner) and then maybe I'll make an unusual salad to accompany the pot pies, something with cranberries involved. Some kind of dessert, or the folks can bring the dessert, like they usually do. That's enough food. Not traditional but enough, and yummy.

Easy Peasy.

I'll check back with you on the day after Thanksgiving to let you know how it went. I'm going now to thumb through my many cookbooks to find just the right recipe/technique, or combination of recipes, for this meal.

~ ~ ~

Today is Halloween.

We live in Salem, The Witch City. It is Halloween Central here in Salem. Salem celebrates this "holiday" for months at a time, starting sometime in September and going thru sometime in November. "Haunted Happenings" officially goes from Oct. 1st thru the 31st" (today) but it doesn't end there. The tourists are all here and milling around all the streets. You can't drive anywhere unless you are VERY careful about not running one or more of them down. I've just come back from my office and I took all the back roads and didn't have any trouble, but it was still early and the hoards were probably sleeping late in anticipation of a big night tonight.

We don't "do" Halloween any more. It's dark here at our house, and no one comes to the door these days as we are fenced in pretty good and tight. We have done our share of "treating" the little goblins over the years, but we're old now and we need the money more than they need the sugar-high.

So, to anyone out there who loves this holiday, Happy Halloween to you!

If we can get through it without any "tricks" being played on us, we'll consider ourselves lucky.

Cheers,

Bex & Co.