This year my daughters were with their dad for Thanksgiving, so we celebrated the weekend before Thanksgiving. By the actual Thanksgiving day, we weren’t eating traditional Thanksgiving food. Instead, we planned to grill some steaks for dinner. The only problem was we were completely out of veggies for the steaks and the grocery stores were closed!
While searching through the pantry and freezers, I found a can of peas (which looked very unappealing), a bag of frozen edamame (equally unattractive), and two carrots in the bottom of my vegetable drawer.
Vegetable side dish puzzle
I was deciding whether to chop up carrots and make peas and carrots (canned) or eat steak with leftover mashed potatoes and no veggies. The interviewer asked what he preferred, and he lit up and said, “Wait!” Before running outside. He came back with his hands full of okra!
It seems like every fall we have different vegetables in our backyard garden beds that take over. Last year it was acorn squash. Another year it was spaghetti squash. This year is the year of okra. In fact, we’ve grown so much okra that we can’t even give it away for free. Or rather, we’ve given them away, we still have plenty of them, and no one wants seconds. hahaha
Traditional and non-traditional Thanksgiving foods
I wasn’t too keen on okra, but I decided I preferred fresh, organic vegetables grown with love at home to canned peas. So I gave it a whirl! I used this Super simple recipe Baked okra in the oven and it turned out delicious!
While steak with okra may not be what everyone enjoys most as a traditional Thanksgiving meal, we finished it off with mini pies I purchased from Cookie Crumbl the day before Thanksgiving. So don’t worry! At least our desert was “traditional”.
Another win for home gardeners
I was so pleased that I was able to prepare a meal that included fresh vegetables on a day when the stores were closed and I thought we had no vegetables at home. I view our backyard as more of a hobby than a money saver. In fact, I think we probably spend more of our time and pay for extra water than we “save” from getting home-grown foods versus buying from the grocery store. However, there’s something incredibly satisfying about cooking and eating food you grew in your backyard. This is a great reminder to try to use what we have instead of rushing out and buying something new from the store.
Do you garden? What are you planting this season – or – what are you planning to plant in the spring? In Arizona, we haven’t reached freezing temperatures yet, so we still have some plants growing….especially okra! 
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