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I enjoy a bit of experimental cooking. A few years ago, we discovered a recipe for stuffed pumpkin- mmmm. It's got apples and raisins, pineapple chunks and nuts, plus you scrape some of the pumpkin off and add fall spices, sometimes a tbsp of cider, then bake it up for an hour or so. Good stuff, I tell ya. But definately a side dish. We keep experimenting with it. The first year it was so sweet, like a fruit compote, so we added it to vanilla ice cream. Since then, we tweak it a bit each year. It's like an exotic cranberry relish- totally optional but really delicious.We have a turkey potluck lunch at work - maybe this is the 2nd or 3rd year? It's a lot of fun, since it's potluck. We try to make it healthier, but the "traditional" carb dishes always win out. So we have 1 or 2 or 3 healthy things and 101 carbs and sugar dishes!
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Actual Thanksgiving Day is rarely hosted at my home. Maybe 2 times in the 11 years we've been married? So I get out of cooking that mess. I mean to help clean up, but you know what they say about good intentions. The place we go has fantastic food, though, so the biggest challenge is to stop eating when I'm full. Especially when the pumpkin pie comes out, again. Every year I say I'm going to "detox" the week before... and it never happens. And then afterwards, we're flung right into the Christmas Sweets Extravaganza... Hmm, but maybe this year I have a week between Thanksgiving and the Start of Christmas Parties. I think I'll start Saturday :)
