Tuesday's Chicken Wings

I watched both grandchildren in the afternoon and we had already decided that Emma could spend the night. Once Val picked up Ethan and took him home, we went to the park with Emma since it was a beautiful afternoon. I had accomplished a lot during the day with cleaning, laundry and advance food prep for Thanksgiving, so we decided to go out to eat. When we asked Emma where she wanted to go, her response without hesitation was Buffalo's. She loves the macaroni and cheese at Buffalo Wild Wings and Gerry and I happen to love their wings which made it a perfect place for dinner.

I did a lot of my Thanksgiving prep before Val dropped the kids off. I made a batch of my Big Batch Quick Dinner Rolls and popped them in the freezer just before I would have baked them. Then all I had to do on Thanksgiving day was pop them in the oven right from the freezer.

I made my cornbread muffins so they could cool down and actually turn a little stale before making my stuffing. I made my pumpkin pie which I think you can make up to two days ahead with no real loss of flavor.

I made my turkey stock by roasting a couple of turkey wings in the oven until they were golden brown and adding them to a stockpot along with some vegetables that had been browned in the stockpot. The entire mixture got covered with water, seasoned and allowed to simmer for a couple of hours to make a very nice turkey stock which I then used for my stuffing and gravy.

I made my cranberry sauce which is fresh cranberries with sugar, grated orange zest and a cinnamon stick which was good, but I think this is better made the morning of Thanksgiving.

I ended my prep work by having Emma help me make pumpkin ice cream which she thought was boring after 3 or 4 minutes of watching the ice cream maker do its magic. It did take a total of almost 20 minutes and I must say she did enjoy seeing the end result and licking the components of the ice cream maker clean. I wonder if she'll have more patience next time knowing that there is a reward at the end...we'll have to wait and see.