Post Thanksgiving Confessions . . .

I have good news and bad news to report. . . The good news is that I ate less during Thanksgiving weekend this year than I have in years past. The bad news is that I did not follow my 1000 calorie diet at all throughout the weekend. Having no restriction in my band, there was nothing but will power standing between me and food & wine a'plenty . . . and will power was there in low grade supply. . .

I may wait a few days before getting on the scale, and I'm bracing myself for a number I'm not going to like. Nonetheless, I'm back on the wagon as of this morning and any pounds I put back on during the past few days will be off again before long.

On the bright side, I had a really great holiday. My sister was in town with my adorable 2 1/2 year old nephew, and we had a blast together. With respect to food, my favorite thing that I made was a pumpkin and brown sugar creme brulee (recipe was from the November Bon Appetit -- it's definitely not diet friendly). It was even better than I'd hoped -- to the point that my home made apple pie went largely untouched and no one ate any ice cream. (I strategically decided to dump the remainder of the pie in the trash after I packed up the last leftover box and had one of my friends take the container of ice cream home with her -- definitely wasn't going to blow it big time by eating that stuff!)

Speaking of leftover boxes, here is a photo of the ones I made for my guests -- it was a great size for holding a bit of everything! I "cut" my last name out of the label before posting this photo, which is why there is a big blank spot.

This year was the first time I ever made an entire turkey all by myself. I splurged and got an organic, free range turkey through Williams Sonoma, and I brined it in a bath of buttermilk and spices for about 30 hours before cooking. It was very flavorful and not at all dry (whew!). I put a photo at the beginning of this post.

I also ultimately decided to do an appetizer and served some of that yummy butternut & acorn squash soup that I blogged about a while ago (I made a new batch). I didn't want to stuff everyone, so I served just a taste, in cute little shot glasses that I picked up at Crate & Barrel. This is how the table looked before we sat down:

I won't put pictures of everything up, since I'm really trying to focus on band-appropriate food in this blog. Plus, I don't want to make people crave things they aren't supposed to have! However, I will put up a photo of (what else?!) the rutabegas!! I only made 2 of the 5 that I bought, and we still had leftovers! Here they are just before they were cooked & mashed!

I hope everyone had a very happy, healthy Thanksgiving!