Brussels Sprouts with Bacon, Cranberries and Pecans

Since we had our Thanksgiving on Friday (due to the fireman doing fireman duties on Thursday) I wasn't all that stressed about cooking the meal.
We have all day, I thought. The fireman's doing the ham, I thought. No biggy.

Cut to around 2:30pm, the fireman and I got home from doing a tiny bit of Black Friday shopping and starting bread for a 3:30pm meal.

We ate around 5pm. Oh, well.

We decided on a ham, because we knew that we'd have had turkey already at the station and the boys would have it at their mom's. But they had steak instead and somehow? All I want is turkey.

All I want is bucketloads of turkey. I want to have so much that I don't know what to do with it.

What's wrong with me? Across the nation cooks everywhere are coming up with fun, innovative ideas for leftover Thanksgiving redo recipes. I wanna be a part of that! I feel left out!

So, last weekend whilst doing a little grocery shopping, I bought myself a turkey. It was onsale! It's getting rotisseried next week.

That'll show them!

BTW, there was a super cute recipe in my Taste of Home magazine about a lady that used stuffing rolled into dumplings and made turkey soup to put it in. And another that patted the leftover stuffing into a pie pan as a crust and then layered the turkey and gravy, with some carrots and green beans from a green bean casserole, topped it with mashed potatoes and baked it. Awesome!!

Anyway, I'm getting off the subject.

I made these Dinner Rolls from Heather Christo's website. They are a variation of Parker House rolls and are buttery and light. She had infused some lovely herbs in with the butter before adding it. What a great idea! I left the herbs out, cause the kids can sometimes be finicky.

Then I came up with a super fabulous brussels sprouts recipe! I knew I wanted something with cranberries and pecans, but hadn't figured it all out yet.

I had the fireman clean the brussels sprouts and cut them in half. These were from our garden!!

I sliced about an inch from a package of bacon and browned it up. After it was browned up I dumped the brussels sprouts in and sauteed them in the bacon grease with the bits of bacon. There wasn't that much grease, don't freak.

Once this was coated and cooked a few minutes, I added... about 1/2 cup fresh cranberries and 1/3 cup lightly chopped pecans.

Pretty! I should have used just a tad less cranberries, as they were fairly tart, but you could use 1/4 dried cranberries as they are sweetened slightly.

Cover with a lid and let steam for 10 - 15 minutes. I also made a vinegar drizzle. Combine 1/4 cup red wine vinegar with 1/8 cup plus 1 Tablespoon olive oil and 1 Teaspoon sugar. I brought mine to a boil to get the sugar to melt and the solution to reduce just a bit. Then drizzle over the brussels sprouts and serve! Or you could serve the drizzle on the side.

Here was a shot of our prep counter. I have an abfab Sweet Potato Casserole recipe that I'll share sometime in the future. We had ham, carrots (with brown sugar and butter), brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potato casserole, yeast dinner rolls, corn bread, whole berry cranberry jelly, and pinot noir.

Leftover Pecan Pie and a pumpkin pie for dessert, also there was some Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake leftover as well.

It was a good meal. Good times.

Just have to leave you with this. Black Friday shopping.

P.S. I love owls.

P.P.S. I went back and they were all gone...

P.P.P.S. My Christmas Giveaway is still going on. Please enter!

What did you guys eat for Thanksgiving?