Biryani.

Here I am on the other side of Big Holiday #1 {unless you count Halloween, in which case I would now be on the back side of Big Holiday #2} and I'm trying to remember what I was doing a week ago because the past ten-or-so days have gonebysuperdeeduperfast.

Brought to you by the annals of holiday card rejects.

But let's take a few minutes to be thankful.

1} Our Phoenix parents and my San Jose cousin-who-lives-in-rural-New-York and my brother in law {and a friend or two} came to us for Thanksgiving. It was glorious to have a week with family to do fun DC things. Everyone but my cousin has spent a lot of time in the DIstrict {or lives here} so it was neat to not feel rushed to pack in a bunch of sites in a few days but also cool to see old things through the eyes of a new visitor. THANK YOU family for a fabulous week.

2} I {& Mike!} hosted our first Thanksgiving. I made/roasted my first Turkey. We used the plates and serving ware and glasses we got for our wedding. We gathered with people in our home. It felt So Good to do this, I cannot even begin to describe how warm it makes me feel, even several days out. We are extremely thankful for the grace of our families and friends and what we've been given in life. 

3} Said bird came out quite nicely if I may say so myself! And I DO say so! I brined the thing overnight which resulted in some nasty spilled turkey-salt-water in and around our fridge but turned out for the best after a lot of soaking-up and sanitizing. I coated our wannabe-national-bird with butter and white wine which is a practically fail-safe procedure when it comes to anything edible {or non}. I am grateful it came out as well as it did and especially grateful to my mother-in-law {& everyone else!} for the support in the whole roast-a-thon-2012.

4} It's cold here but I still don't feel like I'm freezing my buns off; this is A Good Thing considering we have an entire Winter ahead of us. I wonder if a bit of the old Minnesota hardiness rooted itself inside of me?

5} I worked some culinary magic {to me and my tastebuds, at least} tonight and turned left-over turkey and a surplus of sweet potatoes {un-cooked; due to random circumstances we started out with ALOT} and a delectable combination of spices and coconut cream into some turkey and sweet potato biryani. 

Yum...saffron and turmeric - oh my!

One can find the recipe HERE though I made a few tweaks here and there and could say a thing or two about what I would do differently about this recipe. I will say here, though, that biryani is usually waaaaay too spicy for this girl when it's in a restaurant and that making it at home and thus controlling the crushed red pepper was a delight.

Delicious dish.

All-in-all it was a Winner {winner-chicken-turkey-dinner!} in my book and I will keep this in mind for the next time we decide to have excess turkey languishing in our fridge {over-under for the FIFTH [for reals, yo, Turkey Day is late next year] [and why they gotta go and actually PUT black Friday on the calendar YO? Really.] Friday of November 2013?}.

On similar note, I also made slightly-Amish turkey noodle soup {many thanks again to my dear mother-in-law♥!} with the majority of the left-overs this past weekend. Read about it HERE.

6) My sweet husband. I won't get sappy and I'll leave it at that; he's my Thanksgiving turkey and my Christmas tree and my Chanukah menorah. And then some. I love you so so very much sweetie.

Next up on my sneaky little agenda; getting Mike to agree to an all-out Christmas-Winter decorating spree which would include a real tree; I know I'll have great success.

Did you re-purpose any of your left-overs from last week? Do you strategically not bring any home so as to avoid the dilemma of trying to use them up before they've turned?

And, I hope that you spent a relaxing and full weekend wherever you where and with whomever you shared it; I certainly did.
xoxo, natty ♥