It's Almost Thanksgiving!!!!

It should be no surprise to you all that I love Thanksgiving. After all I love food! I love to cook! And I love friends and family, so a Holiday devoted to these three things is bound to be one of my favorites. Yet this year Thanksgiving has really snuck up on me. Usually I spend the whole month before hand thinking about Thanksgiving. What will I cook? Where will we go? Should I go with an old favorite recipe or try something new? What will I wear? And so on.

This is my second Thanksgiving being married but my fourth one with Mr. P. In fact the first time I went home with him to meet his family was the first Thanksgiving after we started dating. Despite being married and having wonderful China and serve ware and beautiful pots and pans and so on, I have never hosted Thanksgiving. I'm very excited for the day I get too but for now where we live is just too small and so we go to our parents house. Last year we were with the Potters so this year we are with my Mom's family.

Because I have been so busy and time is flying I am rather frantically trying to put together all the recipes I am making. We actually have three Thanksgiving dinners to attend this year. The first one is Saturday at my Grandparent's Ranch with my Dad's family. For this dinner I have been assigned Sweet Potatoes and Cranberry Sauce. Our second dinner is the Church Thanksgiving Dinner Sunday after service. I signed up to bring cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes (these are my two specialties). Then for actual Thanksgiving my Mom, and I and my Uncle Frank and our friend David are all collaborating on the cooking. I am in charge of cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, green vegetable and one dessert. I am going to do the same cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes recipes for both weekend dinner's so I can just make double batches on Saturday morning. In my hurried attempt to do so I am using my favorite cooking sites rather then thumb through my extensive cook book selection. Martha Stewart has a great thanksgiving site, as does Epicurus and of course The Food Network. I love the looking through the menu's on these sites. One thing I have always wanted to do and am looking forward to doing when I do host thanksgiving is to pick an amazing menu out of Martha Stewart or Gourmet and follow it 100%. Perhaps this is my Type A personality coming out but I just think it would be lots of fun. Here are the recipes I am trying this year:

For Saturday and Sunday:
Cranberry Chutney

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Brown Sugar and Pecan's

For Thanksgiving Day:
Cranberry Sauce with Dried Cherries
Maple Glazed Sweet Potatoes
Roasted Green Beans and Brussels Sprouts
Pumpkin Banana Mousse Tart

So that's what I am cooking this year. I have yet to decide what I am going to wear...What are your Thanksgiving plans? What favorite dish are you cooking this year?