Muffin Tin Monday - Gobble Gobble!

This week's Muffin Tin Monday theme is Thanksgiving! Not a huge inspiration, nor a particularly engaging holiday for me. Race around to both families' gatherings, usually a 90 minute drive apart. Feel guilty that I don't cook or really participate, but not guilty enough to help handwash my mom's fine china!
A few years ago, my sister (Auntie Kayneen) was out of town with Unka Rop's family for Thanksgiving, but it's her favorite holiday, so she wanted to do one on Friday, the day after. It was great. My other sister and I spent a leisurely day with our respective in-laws on Thursday, then everyone got to devote all their attention to our family Thanksgiving on Friday. It. Was. Awesome. So we decided to do it like that every year. Hooray!

So for this Thanksgiving-themed meal, I spent days slaving away to create all the elements of a Thanksgiving dinner.

Clockwise from top left: Green Bean Casserole, Mashed Potatoes, Sage Stuffing, Pecan Pie,
"Turkey" sandwich, Apples and Raspberries

Are you done laughing in disbelief?

Well, really what happened is this: Nana and Z's cousin Lynnie's birthdays were the Sunday (11/21) before Thanksgiving this year, so we decided to do an early Thanksgiving/birthday party on Saturday (11/20.) Nana made stuffing, and Auntie Keesee (Lynnie's mom and my SIL) made the turkey, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, pecan and pumpkin pies plus probably other stuff I'm forgetting. We brought a bunch of veggies to make a veggie tray, and a variety of dips, but they were never used, as we were 90 minutes late and arrived pretty much in time for dinner. My husband made a carrot cake for Nana while we were there.

I snagged a small sampling of everything from the leftovers and saved it. I chose a sunflower mini-cake/cupcake mold I found on eBay, since it was the most Autumn-y one I could find. Plus it has a nice rust color.

The green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and stuffing were somewhat of a no-brainer, as far as being chosen for this theme. The pecan pie was delicious, but the pumpkin pie was a little burnt on the edges, and by then I was too full to try any, and quite frankly I forgot about it when I was gathering my plate of leftovers. Sorry Keesee!

I used the apples to kind of represent apple pie, which is often a Thanksgiving meal item. And the raspberries I chose in lieu of cranberry relish for two reasons. 1) I don't really like cranberries and 2) I don't have any cranberry relish, and forgot to pack some with my leftovers.

But my favorite is the "Turkey" sandwich! I used a sesame hamburger-style bun, since it was already round and would save me some bread-cutting. I had planned on using a biscuit cutter on either a slice of bread or cheese to make a round head. But as I was assembling my meal, my husband was making a turkey sandwich, and Little Z was going wild for it. He put the mayo on the bread and was pulling apart turkey meat to lay on it, and Z was snarfing it up. Then she wanted to dip the turkey in mayo, so he put out an extra blob for her. Then she said she wanted pickles on it! We do pickles on our tuna fish sandwiches, and turkey ones look very similar.

So my husband sliced a pickle for his sandwich and asked if she was going to eat it, and she said no, that it was his sandwich! So I asked if she wanted pickle on hers, and she said yes. So he sliced up a pickle for me, and it made the perfect shape for a turkey neck and head! Sliced olives for the eyes. I quartered baby carrots lengthwise for the tail feathers and then cut a slice widthwise from one to make a triangular beak, then sliced a mini tomato in half and sliced a bit off the end to make the wattle. This was my second set of eyes and beak, as Princess kept snarfing them off as I was preparing the next bit.

The blue band-aid on her forehead is from a vicious wildcat attack Cooper, Auntie Keesee's cat, who was fed up with being smothered snuggled.

"Oh! How Byoo-duh-fuw!"

Snarfing the pickle first

She ate almost all of the sandwich, all of the raspberries (and asked for more,) and all the candied pecans off the pie. She just saw Lady and the Tramp, so she put the end of a carrot in her mouth and had me take it from her with my mouth. We did this 3 times, then I told her I was done, so she ate one, then started feeding Daddy. It was adorable, but I didn't take any pics, since it's kind of creepy-looking with an adult and a child. Heck, it's kind of grody watching 2 adults do it!