Delayed Thanksgiving

Cliff's youngest sister and her husband, Charlene and Pat, are coming in from St. Louis this evening; they'll spend tomorrow, Thanksgiving, with his parents.  
I asked my daughter if she wanted me to "do" Thanksgiving, and if so, would Saturday be all right; she said that would be the best day, for her; so Saturday it is.  Charlene was delighted that she'll be participating in our family dinner, as well as Pat's.  
I got a huge turkey:  I probably shouldn't have, because by Saturday everybody except for me and Cliff will have had all the turkey they want.  That's no problem for me, because that means I get lots of leftovers to put in the freezer for casseroles, jambalaya, salads, and other good things.  
There was a time when I'd cook both turkey and ham.  This year I couldn't bring myself to spend all that money on ham, when it isn't very good for us older folks.  Believe it or not, by dividing my holiday grocery purchases between this week and last, I still stayed under my $70 per week budget.  I even have $19 to spare, although with my track record there will be several last-minute purchases of items I've forgotten.  I already realized I'll be needing more eggs than I bought; one forgets how many eggs it takes to make a double batch of noodles.  the whole family knows I forget stuff when I cook a big meal, so anyone who is near a grocery store calls to see what they can pick up for me.  
Rachel and Kevin are taking care of the broccoli-and-rice casserole and the sweet potato casserole.  I'll resurrect my favorite cranberry salad, my mom's recipe.  I don't make it often, even on holidays, because I love it so much I end up eating most of it myself.  I've never seen this dish made by anyone outside our family.  Here's the recipe in my mother's words, the way she wrote it on a card for me:

CRANBERRY SALAD

For large batch

Grind one pkg cranberries. Stir in 2 cups sugar and 2 cups miniature marshmallows. Set back in refrigerator overnight or for two or three hours. In morning, add 1 can crushed pineapple (drained well), 4 diced bananas, cup chopped nuts, and fold all into 1 pint cream, whipped. It fluffs up and stays good for a couple days.

I use Cool Whip instead of whipped cream, these days. I have a cow, and I have the cream; but real whipped cream separates in a few hours.   

Of course I'll be making Mother's noodles; granddaughter Amber would cry if I didn't.  And I always make my tried-and-true yeast rolls, the recipe I learned from my first Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.  I simply have to make Oreo Delight, because the oldest grandson would cry if I didn't.  By the way, one of the most frequent searches bringing people to this blog is Oreo delight.  
The son-in-law said his mom would make a dessert of some sort.  

I used to have a simple apple salad recipe with grapes and nuts in it, and whipped cream (or Cool Whip).  I've lost the recipe, and all the ones I google have mayonaise in them.  I've made that version too, but I prefer the one without mayo.  Maybe I should just use that recipe as a guide and then leave out the mayo.  

Anyhow, the menu is planned.  Tomorrow, actual Thanksgiving Day, will be a nice, quiet day for me and Cliff.  He'll likely spend hours in the shop like he's done during all these vacation days of his.  

Oh, remember how I mentioned that Cliff passed his stress test with flying colors?  I'm assuming that's still true, but the other day we talked to a neighbor who's had that kind of stress test, and he said the doctor's office calls a few days afterward with the results.  So if that's the case, we really don't know for sure how Cliff did.  See, the first nuclear stress test he had cause his heart to short out, and he never got to finish it.  So I just figured if he made it through, he passed.  Ha!   

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!