Spending Thanksgiving with my family is fun for a variety of reasons beyond what you would expect.  1) Food.  My menu is determined by my imagination, not my budget, since my mom is always happy to pay for ingredients that she doesn’t have to prepare.  2) Cable.  Specifically, food network.  This afternoon, I caught a bit of this episode of Rachael Ray’s.  I was inspired.

Nate has taught me a thing or two

After a bit of time catching up with a good friend, I hit the local grocery store.  Herb and garlic seasoned pork loin, sweet peppers, bread crumbs (I’m a little embarrassed that I actually bought this), and cream cheese.  Before hitting the Dickens Festival in downtown Fayetteville, I mixed feta with the cream cheese.  I cut off the tops of the peppers and scraped out the seeds.  Stuffed the peppers with the cheese mixture, and into the fridge they went.

3 hours later, back from the Dickens Festival, I roasted the stuffed peppers.  When they were done, put in the pork loin and some asparagus we didn’t cook for Thanksgiving.  Then the fun part…

I pulled out leftover sweet potato casserole, rolled it into balls, covered with bread crumbs and pan fried them.  The sweet potato “croquettes” went amazingly well with the rest of the meal.  Time spent in actual preparation for the whole meal: definitely under half an hour.

All in all, the meal was a success!  I want to make it again tomorrow.  Even my little sister who hates feta was grabbing seconds of the peppers.  Alas, the sweet potatoes are almost gone…