The Beginning

I had high hopes to get some Gobble Gobble prep work done on Monday. I won't go into details, because we are not supposed to parade the sins of our children, right? But my children, all three of them, but especially the middle one, stank on Monday. (Isn't it stink, stank, stunk?) or is it stinked? or stunk?

Let's be honest - I was trying to avoid saying that they sucked. At life.

Anyway, they are precious gifts, and I really do believe that. Really.

But they messed up my Monday Preparations.

So, I began in earnest this morning. And the good news is that whatever fungus the children had apparently ingested yesterday seems to have worked its way out of the system of at least the older two. And the youngest, well, he is a baby, right? So he's allowed to be insane sometimes.

So far:

Baked two batches of (different kinds of) cornbread, let them cool, and crumbled them for cornbread dressing.
Chopped a large onion and six stalks of celery and set aside for cornbread dressing.
Rummaged through freezer to find real, homemade chicken broth for cornbread dressing.

Peeled, chopped and boiled sweet potatoes, threw them in the mixer with all sorts of goodies and made sweet potato casserole, which will not be topped until Thursday at 12:23 pm, but other than that topping, it is ready to go.

Made homemade yeast rolls (see photo above), which were a labor of love, but promise to be so, so very good. I'm about to throw them in the oven to half-bake them. (Let's be honest again - I wanted to say halfbaked.). Then I'll cover tightly and freeze them, pulling them out Thursday morning at 9 to thaw before a second-half-bake and browning.

Ingredients used today:

1 onion
5 giant sweet potatoes
1 bunch celery
6 eggs
2 cups buttermilk corn meal
1 box jiffy
1/4 cup oil
2 1/3 cups whole milk
3 sticks butter
1/2 cup ish half and half
1/3 cup ish brown sugar
1/3 cup ish + 1/2 cup white sugar
1 - 2 tsps ground cinnamon
heavy dashes of nutmeg and cloves


I feel okay about where I am in the whole process, though tomorrow will be filled to the brim with much, much cooking.

And dish washing, oh the dern dishes.
Dishes stink even worse than the children did yesterday.