Today has been such a nice, relaxing day so far… I can’t believe that our 4-day weekend is coming to an end, though, so I plan to fully enjoy the last remaining hours we have of it left!

Bill and I both started out with pretty much identical breakfasts, perhaps because I made them   I cooked some oats stovetop and stirred in some cinnamon and vanilla towards the end.  Then I mixed in pecan halves (that I also cooked stovetop) and topped each bowl with flaxseed and pom seeds.  We also had coffee on the side – shocked?

It was a hearty breakfast that held us well until we got back from church and had lunch!

Lunch was leftovers… We have a TON of pizza left from last night so we are doing our best to try to eat the rest of it before it goes bad and not to waste it.  I paired some tomato pie with a HUGE sliced apple + cinnamon.  I thought for sure I’d be hungry a little while later, but NOPE.  I don’t know if I’m still full from the last few days of holiday eating or if it’s due to the dreary weather or lack of exercising today, but I was shockingly able to make it straight until dinner without a snack.  Definitely a first for me!

I was looking forward to dinner because we were going to replicate our own “little Thanksgiving” tonight.  Although we had no leftovers from Thursday’s meal since it wasn’t at our house, my grandmom actually gave me some of her turkey leftovers!  I knew I wanted to have cranberry sauce, since I didn’t have any on Thanksgiving day (somehow I missed it!).  I also have been seeing cornbread recipes going around on the blogs so I knew that had to be incorporated, also.  I also figured garlic mashed potatoes were a must because Bill is a huge fan.  Finally, I wanted to have tons of roasted veggies because I know I’ve been lacking in the vegetable department lately.

Mid-afternoon I set to work on coming up with some creations and it was a lot of fun, especially since I could take my time with what I was doing.

For my homemade cranberry sauce, I just “winged it”, in my dad’s “famous” words.  I used:

• 12 oz bag of fresh cranberries
• 2 1/4 c of water
• 1/3 c of brown sugar
• little bit of orange peel zest
• sprinkle of salt, cinnamon, vanilla

I brought the mixture of ingredients to a boil in a medium saucepan, then reduced the heat and simmered until all the cranberries had burst and the mixture had gotten thick.  Here’s the finished product:

For the garlic mashed potatoes, I simply boiled some potatoes until soft.  Removed a majority of the water, added in a splash of skim milk, crushed garlic, salt/pepper/red pepper and mashed away.  Normally, I’d add in ff sour cream, but I didn’t have any on hand.  The only thing was is that I don’t have a potato masher – weird I know – I keep forgetting to get one.  So, I took out my immersion blender and did a great job – way to think outside of the box, huh?

For the cornbread, I used a standard cornbread box mix (boring & awful, I know), added in 1.5 cups of frozen corn, skim milk, and a chopped green jalapeno (without the seeds, of course).  I poured the mixture into an 8×8 baking dish and baked at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or so.

The roasted veggies & turkey are pretty self-explanatory as I just simply popped them into the oven until warm/cooked

Here’s my “little Thanksgiving” plate:

Prior to dinner, I also decided to try my hand at making homemade granola!  I see bloggers do this all the time, but for some reason I have been pretty afraid to try it myself, I don’t know why!  I decided to use a super easy recipe for maple pecan granola that I saw a while back featured here.  Although I wasn’t hungry, I made sure to sample a tbsp of it when it came out of the oven – it was heavenly!  I think that this, along with other varieties & mix-ins, would make a great homemade gift for the holidays all nestled up in a pretty jar.

We have had football on tv ALL day so I’m hoping that there is a nice Christmas movie or show on tonight to watch.  A cup of hot, steamy tea will definitely be present and perhaps some pizzelles, if my hunger comes back to me!  My hubby isn’t feeling too well, so I am going to put away the laptop and relax w/ him on the couch for the rest of the night…

Although it’s pretty much a guarantee that the next few weeks will be flying by due to the holiday season, I hope that I can really take advantage of this great time of year and fully enjoy it like I did today!  Enjoy the rest of your Sunday night and don’t forget to check out Coffee Talk for the BSI Winner - can’t wait!