Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. The Food and Nutrition team at Lahey Hospital and Medical center are busy planning for our annual Thanksgiving meal and Pie sale. According to David Cox, Executive Chef, we sold approximately 1128 pies and 300 tea breads last year! This year we will be having the pie sale on Monday, 11/25 and Tuesday, 11/26. I will post pictures of the pie sale in my blog next week. So, be on the look out for our Pie galore!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to share 5 fun facts about Thanksgiving:

1) The first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated by the Plymouth Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts
2) The first Thanksgiving lasted for three days!
3) Turkey was NOT on the menu on the first Thanksgiving feast. So what was on the menu then? It's basically whatever you could catch in the wild (Deer, rabbits, fish etc).
4) Thanksgiving is primarily celebrated in United States and Canada as a day to give thanks for the blessing of the harvest and for the proceeding year.
5) Each Thanksgiving, the President “pardons” a hand-selected turkey, sparing the bird from someone’s dinner table and ensuring the rest of its days are spent roaming on a farm, doing whatever it is turkeys love to do. Twenty-four turkeys have been pardoned to date(not including this coming Thanksgiving)
http://www.whitehousehistory.org/history/white-house-facts-trivia/facts-thanksgiving-turkey-pardoning.html

*Excerpt and info taken from wiki, the White house blog and whsv.com

I have also invited a few of our Food and Nutrition colleagues to share their favorite food, event and Thanksgiving family recipe.

Maria Petkiewich's mother in law's Famous Brocolli and Cheese Caserole

Ingredients
- 1 can cream of Broccoli
- 1/2 box of Ritz Crackers
- 1/4 stick of butter, melted
- 2 heads of Broccolli
- 1/4 cup of milk
- 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese

Instructions

- Heat the oven to 375°F
- Stir all the ingredients except cheddar cheese in a 1 quart casserole. Bake for 15 minutes
- Sprinkle cheddar cheese over the broccoli and bake for another 2 minutes.
- Let stand for 5 minutes before serving

Debra Francis's Famous Granny's Cookies


-1 cup shortening
-1 cup sugar
-2 eggs
-1 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup sour milk
-1 tbsp vanilla
-3 1/2 cups flour
-1 tbsp baking powder
-1 tbsp baking soda
-1 tbsp salt
-1 tbsp nutmeg

Instructions
- Cream together shortening,sugar and brown sugar
- Add eggs, sour milk and vanilla. Mix until smooth
- Sift together the remaining dry ingredients
- Stir into the batter and chill the batter for an hour
- Heat the over to 350°F.
- Bake for 10-15 mins (Until it turns brown)
-Let stand for 5 minutes before serving

Hope you have fun trying out our colleagues's family recipe.

Wishing you and your family a Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving!