Getting Ready...

Thanksgiving is coming up quickly - Hal and I are having Thanksgiving with my family in Hilton Head this year, and we're taking the whole week off. Woohoo! That means we're leaving in one week. So today I've spent my non-football-watching time making some food to freeze and take with us. I also made some Wassail in the crock pot, and have been drinking on it all day - one of my favorite holiday traditions: getting half drunk while I cook. My wassail is easy:
1 gallon apple cider
1 bottle red wine (I like something light, like a Pinot Noir)
12-16 oz of orange juice
12-16 oz pineapple juice
couple of cinnamon sticks and cloves
Mix together, heat it up. You can make it in crock pot, large stew pot on the stove, or a large coffee percolator. Its also very easy to cut that recipe down for consumption by only two people while cooking.

I hope everyone is getting as excited about holiday food as I am. Most of my make-aheads today were breads - blueberry croissant French Toast, cracked pepper biscuits and cider-pumpkin muffins. I'm getting my plan ready for the rest of the make-aheads that I'll take care of closer to time also, to make Thanksgiving as easy as possible since we'll have a lot of people in the condo kitchen. And all I'll want to be doing is drinking anyway. :)