Thanksgiving Prep

 Thanksgiving means family for many people. (I am talking about American Thanksgiving.) None of my original family lives in the same state as me, but I have plenty of family by marriage. We get along well though we don't see each other that often. My husband talks with his brother frequently though.

But on Thanksgiving we do get together. Like many families, everyone makes part of the meal. So we have mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, turkey and stuffing (of course!), and probably some other foods that I'm forgetting. We meet at my brother- and sister-in-law's house, which is about 45 minutes from us by car. They make the turkey and stuffing and several other dishes. I make three pies - pumpkin, apple, and pecan - and a jello mold.

This is not any old jello mold. Cranberry-Orange jello is perfect for Thanksgiving. My sister-in-law used to make it. You could buy Cranberry-Orange relish in the frozen foods section of the grocery store. Then they discontinued it! This was maybe 5 or 6 years ago. I stumbled across a recipe for Cranberry-Orange-Pecan Relish in a  Vegetarian Times magazine from 1996. (I clip recipes, whether I'm going to make them right away or at some later date.) Ta-da!

I told my sister-in-law I had found the recipe and she promptly handed over jello duty to me in perpetuity. I am also responsible for three pies - pumpkin, pecan, and apple. Yesterday was the quest for ingredients. It was a long list. My husband was a big help - the jello recipe needs thinned-skinned juice oranges because you use the entire orange, rind included. In our area we need to go to a grocery specializing in foods from other countries to get those. While I was at a regular sort of grocery store, he went to specialty store. He's a mensch.

It's two days to Thanksgiving, time to make pie crust.