Single Guy Thanksgiving Essentials

Oh. My. Gawd. I can't move. How about you? Why do we do this? OK, I can barely blog, but I thought I should. So as a Single Guy, I don't do a big Thanksgiving since my family is in Hawaii and I'm not. But I still try to do a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for one. At the very minimum, this is what I need to have:

1) Turkey and gravy, of course. But instead of a whole turkey, I roast just a turkey breast. So convenient because it takes just a little over an hour to bake instead of the 2-plus hours for a whole turkey. And it sure helps to have a thermometer to check that it's 165 degrees while resting. Gravy turned out nice using the drippings and a bit of Marsala wine.

2) Stuffing. This year I made one with leftover sausage I had in my refrigerator and red chard for a bit of color.

3) Cranberry. I made my cranberry-pear marmalade that was featured in last year's Chronicle Turkey Cook-Off that I participated in.

4) Pumpkin pie. Yeah, some people don't like the texture, but I loooove pumpkin pie. This year my pie turned out needing a bit more sugar, but the pre-made crust from Marie Callendar sure made it simple.

My simple dinner was finished off with some roasted brussel sprouts and a bottle of Malbec wine from Argentina. Sigh.

Ok, now for the clean up. Thankfully, I have one day to deal with that.

Hope you had a filling and happy Thanksgiving!