beyond cinderella

For cooking comfort food…

Bill and I are spending Thanksgiving with one of the other Park Host couples, Robert and Toni, here at San Tan Mountain Park. We are working the pay booth on Thanksgiving, and by the time we get off, it will be too late to go to our friends, Holly and Chuck’s house as we have in years past… It is a 90 minute drive from the park to Shantel’s house to pick her up, and then at least another 90 minute drive to get to Holly and Chuck’s, and we will be working the pay booth on Friday as well.

Robert is 78 and Toni is 76, they don’t have any family here, and they will be working Thanksgiving Day as well, so we all decided we would order our Thanksgiving to go and share the meal together right here in the Nature Center. Both Bill and I will miss spending Thanksgiving with our family and friends, but we are looking forward to spending the holiday with our new friends Robert and Toni as well.

Since I won’t be cooking any of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes, and I love to cook and entertain, I decided to make homemade goulash and invite one of the other park host couples, Terry and Evelyn, over for dinner last night. Of course when you live in a tiny space (our motorhome has approx. 300 square feet of livable space) you have to get creative when you plan to cook and entertain. Keep in mind I only have one large Dutch oven pot, one sauce pan and three frying pans. But I do have a crockpot and a roasting oven…

So early that morning, I diced and chopped all the ingredients and browned the meat for the goulash, and put it all in the crockpot. Then, just before it was time for our guests to arrive, I cooked the pasta in the Dutch oven keeping it separate from the sauce so everyone could add as much pasta and sauce as they wanted when they served themselves.

I had the table set well in advance of our guests arriving complete with a battery operated candle for mood lighting…

Of course you can’t have goulash without some multi-grain crusty bread..

And YUMMERS!!! Dinner in our tiny space was a big hit!! 🙂

Today, still in the mood for cooking comfort foods…, I made twice baked stuffed acorn squash for our dinner tonight. I cleaned out the squash and baked it until the inside was tender enough to scoop out. Then I cooked long grain and wild rice and mixed that with a browned ground turkey, onion, garlic, and seasoning mixture I prepared, and added in the scooped out squash with some grated cheese and filled the hollowed out squash shells with the mixture and topped each with some grated Italian cheese. It’s all ready to pop in my roasting oven for dinner tonight. Bill and I will be dining alone tonight… but that’s a good thing too because we will have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow… 🙂

I even roasted the acorn squash seeds. Nothing like freshly roasted seeds… Bill said he never had them before so I told him to “prepare to be amazed…” Ha! He tasted them and said he loves them and thinks they are better than pumpkin seeds…

Yes, I love the holiday season… and I love to cook… and for me, “tis the season for cooking comfort foods…!!!

Wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving from our tiny home to yours…I’m grateful and thankful that all of you are part of my life.

Stay Tuned!