Hi!

Things have been a little quiet over here lately, but don’t worry we are definitely still up to random shenanigans!

Steve and I retreated to a cabin outside of Asheville (on the top of a mountain) for the Thanksgiving holiday this year. While we love our families, we realized that we have never really taken a vacation that didn’t involve visiting someone! Thus, a total retreat with just us and the dogs was exactly what the doctor ordered after this difficult semester.

We decided to drive up on Wednesday morning and it was only a 4 hr drive from Raleigh (it was so different having a short trip for once!). Once we made it to Weaverville (just 10 min north of Asheville) we left my car at the bottom of the mountain and the owners were kind enough to drive us up the mountain to our cabin. They definitely were not kidding about needing 4 wheel drive!

The view was worth all the trouble though. It was simply breathtaking. We spent SO much time just looking. Not doing anything, just looking out and feeling peaceful 🙂

The inside of the cabin was pretty small, we had a bedroom, bathroom, and 1/2 a kitchen, and you could walk outside to get to the living room with a TV and couches. It couldn’t have been more perfect for us! We spent most of our time outside with the dogs and we made some pretty incredible meals using only an electric burner and a grill. Including our Thanksgiving dinner, Thanksgiving Turkey Burger!

This was so good, so imma go ahead and share the recipe:

Thanksgiving in a Burger

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground turkey
• 0.25 cup chopped onion
• 0.25 cup dried cranberries
• 2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary, chopped
• ~0.5 cup bread crumbs (add enough so turkey is not super sticky)
• 2-3 sprigs fresh sage, chopped
• brie
• turkey gravy (homemade would be awesome but we just used the cheap instant stuff)
• buns

Directions:

It’s always a good idea to preheat your grill before you start so go ahead and do that, or oven or skillet or sidewalk, whatever you’re gonna use to cook the burgers.

Next, mix the turkey, onion, cranberries, bread crumbs, rosemary, and sage together in a bowl. Salt and pepper to taste and form into patties. Cook the patties until the burgers are cooked through then add a few slices (or a lot of slices because cheese) of brie and let it melt.

While the brie is melting, pour the instant gravy into the pot and add half of the water called for on the package. Cook according to package instructions and let thicken. <- This is gonna seem super salty, but it balances nicely with the whole burger deal.

BURGERS ASSEMBLE!! (at this point you can either attempt to call the Avengers or just assemble the burgers)

These were awesome and we regretfully only made 4. All of which were eaten within several hours of each other.

The dogs tried their best to get some, but were denied turkey this year

-Look at those bat ears!!!

After stuffing ourselves we went back to the usual activities and sat, drank wine, and looked at mountains…

See ya later with Thanksgiving Part 2!