Thanksgiving: the great day of stuffing. Thanksgiving for most people means eating until you’re relatively certain that consumption of even one more bite will result in a massive vomitous explosion. When I was a kid I definitely gorged myself on Turkey Day but I have since outgrown my desire to ingest painfully large quantities of food. Thanksgiving has therefore become a holiday of food quality not quantity for me. Everything I make for our crazy array of family dinners has to be homemade and delicious; I usually bring out my most decadent and elaborate recipes for this holiday.

With two families to visit, Thanksgiving, like Christmas, is typically very hectic for me and Jason and generally leaves us completely exhausted. So this year, in addition to the pumpkin cheesecake and assorted tidbits I made for our family dinners, I decided to cook me and Jason pre and post Thanksgiving meals on Wednesday and Friday. I thought it would be nice to make some tasty food on days we could actually relax a bit and enjoy it.

I made Butternut Squash Soup, Phyllo Wrapped Asparagus, and Bruschetta with Sautéed Sweet Peppers and Creamy Gorgonzola for our pre-feasting feast and an absolutely scrumptious, and time consuming, Beef Bourguignon recipe for our post-holiday stuffing. Yum!

Spreading out our holiday food intake turned out to be pretty perfect for me since I don’t really care for the normal Thanksgiving porking. Jason made no complaints about this 3 day food fiesta but maybe that’s because his mouth was too crammed to utter a syllable. Either way, I think I have stumbled upon a lovely new Thanksgiving tradition that I am going to continue in the years to come.