Happy Thanksgiving Week!
We'll be prepping for Thanksgiving today and tomorrow since the rest of the week will be packed to the brim with other things!
I'll be roasting the turkey tomorrow, then carving it and refrigerating the sliced meat until Thursday when I'll heat it up in the oven. Bread cubes for the dressing are ready and waiting to go in the slow cooker on Thursday morning, and the same for the potatoes. I'll slice the ham tomorrow, too, and keep it ready until Thursday morning.
Wednesday evening I'll set the table for our expected crowd of fifteen and prepare the relish plate (you might call it crudite, but my Amish forebears would think that is too fancy of a word!) The last thing on Wednesday will be the centerpiece to make the table festive - I'm still thinking about what that will look like!
All this prep means a peaceful Thanksgiving morning for hubby and I. We'll be sipping our cups of Cranberry Tea and watching the sun shine on the mountains instead of bustling around to get ready for our friends and family at noon!
Cranberry Tea? I shared the recipe several years ago in a post with a Thanksgiving story starring the characters from my Love Inspired book, A Home for His Family. Since then I've updated the story and changed it to Christmas, but the recipe is as good as ever!
I hope you enjoy both the story and the recipe!
Christmas
for the Colbys
Nate Colby paused at
the edge of the clearing to get his bearings. Ahead of him, one line of tracks
marred the pristine snow of the mountain meadow. They were his tracks from early
this morning when he was fresh with the hope of finding game for his family’s Christmas
dinner. Those tracks were straight and sure. Tonight? He glanced behind him. At
least the approaching dusk hid his stumbling trail. Exhaustion was taking its
toll.
This winter of 1878
was turning out to be a hard one here in the Black Hills. Most of the miners,
their claims played out or sold to a bigger outfit, had gone south and east for
the winter. Back to their city lives in hopes of finding a job to sustain them
until spring when they could come back to Dakota and try again. The gold fever
never let a man go once it grasped ahold of him.
But Nate hadn’t come
to these hills for gold. He had come to make a home for his family. A home in a
harsh wilderness.
He shifted the
Sharps rifle to his left hand and started across the meadow. Even without meat,
they wouldn’t starve. The fifty-pound bag of beans and a few sod potatoes in
the root cellar ensured that. And if he had to….
Nate shifted the
Sharps back to his right hand again.
If he had to, he
could butcher one of the heifers.
He shook his
head at the idea. No man ate his breeding stock unless he had nothing else.
The deep snow,
soft from the winter sun, clung to his snowshoes like spring gumbo. He veered
right at the far end of the meadow, avoiding the nightmarish Deadwood Gulch.
Even in the best weather, a man could break a leg trying to navigate between
the digs along the creek. And with snow covering the scattered mines, you never
knew when the soft blanket would give way and you’d find yourself with one foot
dangling in another man’s broken dreams.
Trudging along
the ridge, Nate searched through the possibilities of making tomorrow’s dinner
special. Something to celebrate their first Christmas in the Black Hills.
Something to help Olivia, Charley, and Lucy forget the anniversary of the fire
that killed Nate’s brother and his wife, the children’s parents.
Would any of
the stores in town have sweets? Not likely. The last bull train bringing
supplies had come through more than a month ago. A freighter or two still made
the trek to Deadwood if they could, but the last wagon that had made it through
just before the last storm had hauled pans, picks, and shovels. Supplies that
wouldn’t be needed until spring.
Some beef from
Slaughterhouse Gulch on the north side of the valley? Too dear. He had spent
all his cash on the cattle for his ranch.
No, they would
just have to make do with the beans and potatoes.
Rounding
Lexington Hill, Nate stopped, drinking in the sight of the cabin nestled under
the shadow of the rimrock. His claim had been scoured by the miners in ’75, and
then ignored. But the acres of grass in the high mountain meadows stretching in
front of the cabin had been exactly what he had been looking for.
His gold was in the
fifty bred heifers he had brought in from Montana last summer and his pair of
Morgan horses. In his dreams, Morgan foals romped on the rich grass of these
pastures. They represented a future for his family.
They meant the future
for Coop’s family, too, if his partner ever got married and settled down. He
missed Coop, but the young cowboy had gone west to spend the winter with his
parents in Oregon. He’d be home in the spring, but until then, they’d have to
get along without him.
His pace
quickened at the sight of a sleigh in front of the house. The MacFarlands had come.
Did they know how important tomorrow was for the children? Sarah might have
told her aunt and uncle, James and Margaret. Olivia had shared the tragedy with
Sarah, confiding in the woman who had once been her trusted teacher.
Sarah.
The thought of
her put new energy in his steps. He tore off the cumbersome snowshoes as soon
as he reached the front porch. As he swung the door open, James and Margaret
looked up to greet him. The scene was as homey as he could wish, with the older
couple sitting in the two chairs on either side of the fireplace while Sarah stirred
a pot on the stove. Olivia and Charley stood on either side of her, leaning in
to breathe in the fruity, spicy scent that filled the cabin.
“Uncle
Nate!” Five-year-old Lucy slid off Margaret’s lap and ran to him, grabbing his
leg. “Sarah is making tea. Berry tea!”
“Cranberry tea.” Olivia grinned at Nate over her shoulder, her cheeks
pink from stirring the tea. She missed her mother more than any of them, but
the sadness that had once haunted her eyes had disappeared since the wedding in
October.
Charley,
with all the energy an eight-year-old boy could muster, ran to Nate and started
pulling off his coat. “Wait until you taste it! And they brought turkey, too!”
Nate
glanced at James. The preacher smiled broadly. “The folks back home remembered
us with a missionary barrel and sent it by special freight. It arrived this
morning. The cranberries are straight from Maine.” He shook his head as if
still unable to believe the blessing. “The Lord takes such good care of us.”
With one
arm around Lucy’s shoulders, Nate caught Sarah’s eye, returning her smile.
Cranberry tea and turkey to make this Christmas special? It was only one of the
miracles that had happened since he had made Sarah MacFarland his wife.
And here's the recipe:
Sarah Colby's Cranberry Tea
Ingredients:
1 pound fresh cranberries
2-3 sticks cinnamon
1 cup honey
1/2 cup lemon juice
Cook the cranberries in a dutch oven or stock pot in two quarts water until they pop. Literally. When they get hot enough, you'll hear them popping in your pot!
Let them cook for a few minutes, and then strain out the cranberries - either with a strainer, or pour the tea through a colander, reserving the juice. and then put the juice back into the pot.
Save the cranberries, though! You'll want to use them for cranberry relish on Thursday!
Put the cinnamon sticks in the juice, and let simmer for about ten minutes.
Add the honey, lemon juice, and an additional two quarts water. Heat to boiling, then reduce to a simmer.
You can remove the cinnamon sticks at any time, but Sarah likes to leave them in to get all the good flavor out!
Serve the tea hot, or refrigerate the leftovers and drink it cold. This is a great drink when you have a cold or the flu!
Have a great Thanksgiving!
Jan Drexler spent her childhood dreaming of living in the Wild West and is now thrilled to call the Black Hills of South Dakota her home. When she isn’t writing she spends much of her time satisfying her cross-stitch addiction or hiking and enjoying the Black Hills with her husband of more than thirty-seven years.
