Wow, Thanksgiving was fun. What I remember of it, at least. It certainly was a day of indulgence, and enjoying good friends. My gang of merry revelers all pitched in to make it a day of joy-filled memories (and black-outs.)
As Naseem mentioned in her Thursday post, she brought me the cutest bacons ever made. Adorned in a pilgrim hat and native head dress, these Thanksgiving guardians stood proudly by the beautiful centerpiece (until we lit the candle), also made by Naseem with succulent clippings from her garden. It took me a few minutes to get through the, “I can’t believe you made thats” and, “Aaw, you really shouldn’t haves” before we could get down to the business of baking. But eventually our hunger got the best of us and it was time for a late breakfast.
For months now I’ve been planning to make the famous Bacon Cinnamon Rolls. I’m not always the biggest fan of mixing my salty and sweet, but these things really did look good to me, and since Thanksgiving is the one day of the year that I indulge in Pillsbury products, I figured, what the heck? We used Trader Joe’s thick-cut, applewood-smoked bacon for this recipe, and a basic can of Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls. Turned out the rolls either never were “rolled” or had been in the can so long they could not longer be taken apart. At any rate, we used a knife to “unroll” them, and rolled each back up with a slice of bacon. I had pre-cooked the bacon to about half done in the oven.
We ended up securing each roll with a toothpick so they wouldn’t unravel, and baked for about 13 minutes. (I think my oven’s thermometer may be off…the can only called for 10 minutes.) We let them cool about 5 minutes, and then frosted those beautiful babies with the can of glaze provided. We held off as long as we could, but finally they had to be tasted. And they were…DELICIOUS! Oh my gosh, I am so going to make these again. We each ate two with a chilly mimosa and forced ourselves to stop eating so we could keep doing other dinner prep. But dang, I could have gone for a third.
The rest of the food was pretty standard holiday fare and mostly non-bacony except the green beans. The stuffing was jam-packed with spicy and sweet Italian pork sausage, which was pretty awesome. And this was funny: right before serving dinner, I announced, “Oh wait, I need to make the salad. Do you guys want salad?” The unanimous answer was, “no!” And so, yet another saladless Thanksgiving was had.
I’m sad to report that the turkey and gravy were both demolished! Not a leftover in sight. Which means…Thanksgiving part II next weekend when the husband gets back in town. It’ll be tough to stuff myself with all that delicious food again, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Big thanks to Naseem for being my “right hand man,” and to all my guests for sharing the day with me. I’m thankful for each and every one of you.
