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Savory Stuffed Pumpkin with Sausage and Gruyère

(Image credit: Nealey Dozier)

Turkey is traditionally front and center on the Thanksgiving spread, but this whole roasted bird isn’t the only way to serve up an impressive holiday dinner. If you’re not really that into cooking a whole turkey, go ahead and give it a pass. Here are 10 Thanksgiving-worthy mains guaranteed to still make your meal memorable.

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Serving Thanksgiving dinner as a buffet instead of a passed meal is a great choice if you’re hosting a large group. While it’s pretty straight-forward — set up the spread for guests to help themselves before sitting down — there’s one small thing that’s easy to forget when preparing the buffet table.

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We know that the turkey and all the fixings, not to mention your perfect apple pie, take center stage during the holidays. But lets not forget about the cook — that would be you! This is especially true if you’re hosting for the first time and are anxious to make a good impression on your mother-in-law, who is coming, by the way. No big deal, right?

First and foremost, your outfit should never get in the way of what you have cooking. Fabrics that easily wrinkle, whites that are a magnet for stains, or complicated sleeves that might get wrapped up in the mixer are pieces to avoid.

You also want to feel comfortable. Selecting clothing that represents you and makes you feel your best is always the right choice. An effortless but inspired ensemble can be contagious to your cooking, and might just be the ingredient you need to pull off the perfect holiday.

Perhaps you already have something in your closet (you probably do), but if you’re looking for something new, here are three outfit ideas that will make you look as good as you cook.

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We don’t want you to spend the Sunday before Thanksgiving rushing from store to store, hunting down ingredients in the mob of other harried home cooks. We wan’t your Thanksgiving prep, from the shopping to the cooking, to be a stress-free affair. To begin, design a Thanksgiving menu that suits your goals as a cook. Then use one of our handy guides to shop for all your Thanksgiving ingredients at one store. Here’s how to do it.

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Going home for the holidays is like going to the Upside Down, back in time to when the world still felt strange and new. Welcome to Stranger Thanksgiving, inspired by Netflix’s hit Stranger Things and Thanksgivings of our childhoods. Today Jenni Ferrari-Adler, editor of Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, writes about childhood Thanksgivings and how they affect her still.

When I was the Girl Cousin, we drove under the Hudson River through the long tunnel to New Jersey once a month. In traffic my parents argued — if we’d left earlier!; if we’d taken the other tunnel; the other turn — every time. I kicked my little brother to distract him. If my father didn’t have a temper. If my mother were more confident. If my parents’ parents had learned different lessons from their parents. The oil fields stank. I asked my father to please stop the car so I could be sick on the shoulder of the highway.

Adam and I didn’t have car seats or car snacks. We stared out the window at the birds clustered on telephone wires. There were infinity cars traveling the same way we were. I was obsessed with all the lives being lived in close proximity. Also with orphans and made-up lands. I read voraciously and indiscriminately — Sweet Valley High, The Flowers in The Attic, The Pistachio Prescription — for clues about other families and the future. I collected foreign coins, smooth stones, and rabbits’ feet. I stared at landscape paintings and tried to enter them. I wrote stories about girls who pumped their legs so hard their swings flew off the chains and transported them to other realms.

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Open Slideshow

A festive celebration like Thanksgiving deserves a festive drink. If you’re hosting a large number of guests, skip the individual cocktails and go with a pitcher drink instead. Not only does it serve a crowd, but the crowd can also help themselves at their own leisure while you’re putting the final touches on dinner. Here are 10 simple and seasonal pitcher cocktails we love.

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Let’s see. Yep. I’ve been following the Primal lifestyle for about, holy cow, FIVE years now. Well, it will be 5 years in January, so I’m calling that close enough. Here is my original Success Story. Maybe it’s the change of season or my recent focused quest to discover my dharma, but I’ve been reflecting quite a bit lately on how my life has changed over the years, especially since I discovered MDA. I am in a much different place than I was back then – most of the place is better, some of the place is – I wouldn’t say worse – but more challenging, and none of the place is bad. So let’s dive in.

The Betterness

The quality of food that I eat is immensely better. For example, for breakfast today I made roasted potatoes, tossed in Primal Kitchen Avocado Oil (it’s green!) and spiced with Real Salt, fresh ground pepper, organic onion, garlic, and chili powder. These accompanied a side of scrambled eggs cooked in coconut oil with locally raised green pepper and onion. With breakfast I drank a glass of homemade kombucha. Contrast this with a typical Sunday breakfast back in 2011: It’s Sunday! Treat Day! That meant a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, occasionally (like yesterday), we will have a flash-back breakfast. But now, instead of McD’s, we get a chorizo, egg, and cheese on delicious telera bread from the local coffee shop. I end up eating about 2 bites of bread, and then I just eat the guts of the sandwich. My point is, I make much better choices now at least 80% of the time.

My feet are in much better shape! Thanks to MDA and Katy Bowman (who I was introduced to via MDA), I no longer wear heels and have even spent most of the summer in Luna Sandals – running, walking, and hiking. I have space between my toes, a nice high arch, and NO LEG CRAMPS when I go to bed at night.

I move almost constantly, but I no longer do chronic cardio. When I’m not trapped in an all-day meeting at work, I am up and out of my office chair at least every 30 minutes – getting water, going to the bathroom, or just taking a wide prasarita stance and typing at my keyboard. I don’t do a lot of focused “exercise.” But when I walk under our pull-up bar to get into the kitchen, I hang for a few seconds (working up to a pull-up one day). When I go the bathroom, I use the Squatty Potty. When I watch TV, I lay on the floor and constantly shift around. And when I’m in my office on a conference call, I do air squats or tree pose, or I massage my feet with Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Balls.

My anxiety levels are super low, my energy levels are super high (I rarely get the 2 P.M. crash anymore), and my weight and body composition are stable and healthy (courtesy of the better quality of food and constant movement).

I have developed a regular meditation practice. I still struggle to find time to do all the things I want to do in a day, but I try to carve out at least 10 minutes 5 days/week for a guided meditation. Thank you Insight Timer!!

Sleep – I almost always sleep well, and I sleep for 8 hours a night. Our bedroom is pitch black with no blue-light. Tim and I both read with our amber glasses on before bed.

The Challengeness

Seeing how much my heath has improved by changing the way I eat and move has seeded me with an intense desire to help others realize how much better they can feel if they take better care of themselves. For the past 4 years, I have been struggling with finding the best outlet for this desire. Last year I became a registered yoga teacher, and this year I trained with Jill Miller and became a Certified Yoga Tune Up® teacher (a modality I discovered through Mark and Katy’s collaboration on Don’t Just Sit There). I also completed a health coach certification program.

While teaching mindful movement gives me access to people who are looking for ways to become healthier and happier, I am constrained by my fear of not knowing enough to really help and also by my fear of letting go of my 8-5 job with benefits and structure, and security. My desire to help others as much as possible and share all the amazing things I have learned about the human body and psyche is currently at war with my desire for stableness, safety, and monetary security. So, yeah. That’s what I am figuring out now.

I set the intention in July to find my dharma (aka purpose – why was I put in this body, in this life, in this family, in this time), and now I have to live with the answers that have come up. TRUTH is inconvenient. For more on that, check out this Bliss & Grit podcast. Be careful what you wish for! Oddly enough, the Universe/Source/God does not really care about your coziness when it shows you your true path.

Once you get your diet, movement, and sleep in order, you are driven to get your spiritual house in order as well. That leads to a lot of soul searching and reading (books and books and books), and reflection. It is MUCH easier to just come home, eat supper, watch Seinfeld and go to bed. You don’t have to figure out: Does God exist? Is the Universe God? Am I a part of God? Am I put here for a reason? If so, do I have to uproot my safe life to fulfill that reason? How do I quiet my ego? How do I access my Witness self? Do I want to? Do I want to find out what issues are in my tissues, or should I let sleeping dogs lie? Do I want money or happiness? Or both? Can I be happy with just one? Ugh. The questions!! They never stop. And THAT is the challengeness. Thanks, Mark, for getting me to this point. And, yes, that is a *little* sarcastic.

I think that about covers the past 5ish years. Like I said, it’s mostly all good. Even the Challenges are good, just, well, challenging. They foster growth, which is really what I’ve come to believe life is all about. Nothing is good, nothing is bad – it’s all perception and what you learn from it.

I am happy I am on this path, hanging out in my back yard getting startled by squirrels creeping up on me with nuts in their cheeks, being harassed by end-of-summer slow bees, drinking my coffee with coconut milk, slathered in some hippie bug repellent that only kind of works. The breeze (wow, I accidentally typed “breath” instead of breeze, which kind of blew my mind. The universe is breathing me right now!) is blowing over me and through me. The moss of my patio is vibrantly green and furry. Life is beautiful and difficult and worth it.

Take care, Hlo

The post My Life Was Changed by MDA, and Now I Want to Help Others Create Better Health! appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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Whether you’re cooking this year’s Thanksgiving feast for your first time or your fifth, or whether it’s a simple party of two or a gathering of 10, this is not your average Thursday-night dinner. We want you to be successful, so we’re sharing the missteps you should take care to avoid — and what to do instead.

From the turkey and sides to dessert and drinks, here are all the common mistakes to avoid for a successful, delicious Thanksgiving dinner.

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From Apartment Therapy → Tea Time: 10 Best Electric Kettles

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