the story of how turkey day became bacon day

so, i've never really liked turkey (except turkey sammiches, but that's a different post), but i do love me some bacon, so whenever i'm asked to contribute to thanksgiving dinner i usually go with bacon or pork of some sort.  a couple of years ago i made up a sausage, cranberry, and apple dressing that was a huge hit, so now i'm expected to make dressing all the time.  but i've done that one a couple years in a row now, as well as a few times at work, so i wanted to do something different.  and, since i've never had cornbread stuffing, i did that.  i looked at a couple recipies but didn't follow any...i just crispied up some bacon, cooked celery and onion in that, added fresh sage and thyme, and mixed that with cornbread crumbles and chicken stock.  then, i drizzled like a half cup of bacon fat over the whole thing and baked it until crispy.  it looked like this:

i also made pumpkin apple soup, cause i love pumpkin soup and had never had soup at thanksgiving before.  it was easy, i just cooked more bacon, cooked onion and garlic in the bacon fat, added a granny smith apple, some apple cider, some chicken stock, and a can of pumpkin.  then i whipped it with the stick blender and served it with a drizzle of heavy cream on top.  everybody LOVED it.  home run.

i also tried making candy for the first time ever, and, you guessed it, i made BACON CANDY.  well, technically i was trying to make bacon brittle, but i think i did a few things wrong.  first, there was a lot of bacon (and pecans) so it was probably chunkier than it should have been.  and i don't think i stirred it enough cause it was two different colors.  and it didn't spread out like i wanted it to.  in fact, when i finished i wasn't sure if it would turn out to be anything, but after a night in the fridge it set up and i smashed it to bits and it's really chewy and sticky but it's sweet at first and the more you chew it the more the bacon comes out, and it gets smokey and salty and porky.  friggin yum.

also my big brother made an incredible roasted sweet potato salad, butte-style (cold, whipped, with egg and scallion), and i ate so much i didn't eat any mashies (for the first thanksgiving ever).  it was amaaaaazing.

sadly, the sweet potato salad didn't have any bacon in it.  but it was damn good anyway, and i went home proud of how much everybody liked the soup (my dad ate it prison-style, all hunched over with his elbows out), my sister in law destroyed the stuffing (both mine and my dads), i picked lots of crispy skin off the turkey when everybody had sat down and started eating, and i was kind of surprised i came home with bacon candy left.  oh well, i ate a bunch last night and i'm bringing the rest to work.

hope all my dear readers had a good bac--err--turkey day, and hope ya'll like my pictures.  that soup looks awesome!