Switching Sides: Simple Roasted Carrots For Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my holiday. All mine. I plan the menu, but I don’t forget to add in a few family favorites mixed with a few new recipes I’ve bookmarked to try. What usually happens though, is that I end up with way too many sides that take too much time to prepare.  Inevitably we eat about an hour later (okay, two) than I tell everyone.   Not this year.

This year I’m taking Thanksgiving back. I’m all about simplicity this year. I want good-quality ingredients prepared simply with as little stress as possible. I’m trading in those time-consuming sides (with too many steps and endless ingredients) for the basics done well.

A few Thanksgivings ago, I made Braised Carrots with Shallots, Thyme and Sage from Gourmet Magazine. They were incredible.  INCREDIBLE.

Because I usually run out of burners on the stove, I’m trading the 20 minutes on the stove for 20 minutes in the oven. I’m nixing the braising liquid and the high calorie butter (though, as I said–incredible), and yes, even the shallots. I will be keeping the basic flavor elements that will help the sweetness of the baby rainbow carrots shine through.

Fresh herbs are an important part of Thanksgiving.  I planted sage in my garden a few years ago just so I could have it for Thanksgiving.  True story.  And basically so I could eat those braised carrots all spring, summer, and winter long.

If you can’t find fresh herbs, don’t fret.  Dried is fine.  Just use about half as much because dried herbs (if they aren’t too old and stale) will be stronger than an equal amount of fresh.  I love sage by itself, but I’ve added rosemary and thyme here because…well, because why not?  It’s Thanksgiving after all.

Last time-saving tip–don’t peel your carrots. It won’t hurt you to eat the peel.  And it saves a lot of time.  These carrots are pretty small anyway, so I also didn’t want to lose too much by peeling them.  I scrub them with a brush or the rough side of a new dish sponge to remove any dirt.  I halved or quartered the thicker carrots so they all cooked evenly.  (For size reference, the carrots pictured ranged from the thickness of a pencil to about 1? in diameter.)

Use the leftovers cold or room temperature in a salad or dipped in something yummy.

Roasted Baby Carrots with Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
double or triple for a crowd, this amount will serve 4

1 1/2 lbs. baby carrots (rainbow if you can find them), washed well
1 small sprig fresh rosemary, minced
1-2 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves removed from the stems
5-6 sage leaves, thinly sliced, plus more for garnish
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Toss carrots with the olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and herbs.  Roast at 425 degrees F for about 20 minutes in a baking dish or on a baking sheet lined with parchment.  (I like mine tender-crisp.  Roast longer if you prefer them more tender.)

Tagged as: menu plan, side dish, thanksgiving, thanksgiving food

Lindsey Johnson is a stay-at-home mom who enjoys cooking, baking, photography, gardening, and writing. You can find more recipes at her blog, Cafe Johnsonia. Read other posts by Lindsey

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Free Printable Thanksgiving Coloring Pages

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and it’s time to start the celebrations! Print out these free coloring pages for the kids to color, a perfect craft to keep little hands busy while Mr. Turkey is still cooking away. There is even a fun paper cut out printable helping teach children what “Max” might wear on a cold autumn day!

Marie LeBaron is the founder and managing editor of Make and Takes. Always having a love of crafts, she enjoys getting messy with glue and glitter. There’s always some sort of project going on, her kitchen counter is often cluttered with crafts. When she’s not crafting and creating with her kids, she loves to run, read, and blog! Read other posts by Marie

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Two Easy Thanksgiving Kids Crafts Ideas For Holiday Fun and Learning

When you take the time to make Thanksgiving crafts with your kids you get to spend some special quality time together. You can also teach them some of the history and meaning of Thanksgiving while assembling a few interesting craft decorations for your home and Thanksgiving Dinner table.

Thanksgiving celebrations are a time to give thanks and be grateful for what we have. Following this theme, you could have your kids make a "thankful" turkey. You will need a few sheets of light cardboard or heavy paper, preferably in Fall colors such as red, orange, brown, and yellow.

Start by cutting a circle out of brown card. This will be the turkey's body. You decide how big you want it to be. Cut out a piece of card in a tear drop shape to make a head and beak, and glue it onto the top of the body. Also cut out a turkey's wattle from red card and attach it. Take some yellow card, and cut out and glue on some legs and feet to the bottom of the body. Have some creative fun adding some features and colors to give your turkey eyes, a beak and some character, using paints, crayons or marker pens.

Next, make a dozen or so feathers in an elongated oval shape cut out of the card. Use a variety of colors. Have your kids write on these feathers with a selection of the things that they are thankful for - one to each feather. This will get them thinking about Thanksgiving, and get some discussion going. Once all the feathers are filled in, glue them onto the body to make a fan as the turkey's tail, showing the messages. Hang up your "thankful" turkey for your Thanksgiving dinner guests to see and talk about with your kids.

Thanksgiving crafts for kids don't have to cost a lot of money. You could, for example, make a simple but impressive paper bag turkey to use as a centerpiece for your Thanksgiving dinner table. All you need are three brown paper bags - preferably two of the large grocery bags size, and one medium size - a pair of scissors, some newspaper, glue, a red balloon, some wiggly eyes from a craft shop, and a rubber band. A stapler may help as well.

To make the head, stuff a ball of newspaper in the bottom of the medium-sized bag. this will be the turkey's head. Twist the rest of the bag around to make a long, skinny turkey's neck. Shape out the head into a beak, and glue the wiggly eyes to the face. Make the turkey's wattle from the red balloon.

Stuff one of the large bags two thirds full with newspaper for the turkey's body. Close the bag off with a large rubber band. Lie the bag on it's side and cut a small hole through the the top an inch or so from the bottom, and insert the neck. Support the neck in place with the newspaper stuffing and some glue. From the remaining large bag, cut four large half-circles to be the turkey's tail feathers. Glue them in layers to the back of the body, perhaps with the help of a stapler. Apply some colorful paint, and your guests will be delighted with your child's turkey craft efforts.

These kids crafts are just a sample of the many kids Thanksgiving craft ideas that are available for you. Visit [http://www.familyhomelifestyle.com/thanksgiving] for many more other suggestions of Thanksgiving crafts for kids [http://www.familyhomelifestyle.com/thanksgiving/thanksgivingcraftsforkids.html] and Thanksgiving decorations and family activities.

Kids Crafts - Thanksgiving Mosaic

Many of the world's great civilizations used mosaic art to depict important images in special places. During my travels to Italy in college, we visited Venice. The cathedral there had a dome over the alter that beautifully depicted religious scenes and icons in mosaic tile. While we can't create something of that scale with our kids, we can help them to see the beauty in mosaic art and gain an understanding of the effort that went into these great works.

Here's what you need:

- Tempera, craft, or poster paint (fall colors)

- Pumpkin seeds or dried beans

- Glue

- Card Stock or poster board

- Small disposable dish and disposable fork

Here's what we did:

1. We used dried red beans (because we had them in the house). However, any dried bean will work. A variety of beans can be used unpainted, or one type of bean painted for color. We painted ours with craft paint. I squirted some paint into the bottom of a disposable bowl, poured in the beans, and let the kids use a disposable fork to stir and mix the beans into the paint until they were all coated in paint. We did not get a perfect coating on all the beans, but we decided this would make our mosaic more interesting. We spread the painted beans out on a sheet of paper to dry, making sure that no two beans were touching while drying.

2. While our paint was drying, we took a 9 x 12 inch sheet of card stock. (This was actually part of the packaging from one of the kids' Halloween costumes.) We cut it into fourths. My son and daughter each drew a fall/Thanksgiving picture. My son drew the Mayflower, and my daughter a leaf. I drew them a turkey and a pilgrim hat on the remaining two fourths.

3. Once our beans were dry, we pulled them off the paper where they were drying. Then we squirted glue onto our pictures, in small sections. Carefully placing colored beans onto the glued sections, we proceeded to finish our mosaics.

4. Once all the beans were glued into place, we let our pieces dry.

A Few Quick Tips:

1. If your kids are really young, you may want to use bigger beans like lima beans or butter beans. These will be easier for little fingers and will cover a larger space more quickly.

2. Remember that your drawings will be colored in with small objects and these will restrict the detail possible. Remind your children of this when they are drawing their pictures so that they can use large, generalized shapes as opposed to very detailed line drawings.

3. Begin your mosaic with the most important item. For example, on our pilgrim hat, we began with the top of the hat. I squirted glue onto the top portion that was going to be black and we filled that in. Then we did the gold buckle. Following that the red stripe, then the brim.

4. If your kids are getting tired, or you fear that their patience will not last to completion of the project, you can remind them that they can space their pieces out a little. Again, on our pilgrim hat, the beans are very close on the hat, but spread out some on the background.

As always, there are limitless variations possible. You can do this project again and again. Change theme, do a Christmas one. Change materials, try pebbles, beads, buttons, tiles. You're only limiting factor is your imagination. So use your imagination, and have fun!

If you enjoyed this idea, please visit http://kidsactivityalley.blogspot.com to find and share ideas for kids activities, kids crafts, and more. Have a safe and happy holiday season!

Kids Crafts - Thanksgiving Handprint Wreath

Are you and your family thinking of Thanksgiving yet? It is right around the corner. (Only three weeks away.) Here is a great craft idea for Thanksgiving that will get the whole family involved. And, as usual, there are a variety of things you can do with this, by just using your imagination . . . and a few simple tips. This idea, while aimed at Thanksgiving, could be done for a variety of holidays with only slight variations.

Here is what you'll need:

- Colored paper (scrapbook or construction), craft foam, or felt (all in autumn colors)

- Poster board, cardboard, or foam core board.

- Scissors and/or exacto knife

- Glue

- Embellishments - These can be buttons, berries, pom poms, pipe cleaners, ribbons . . . You name it, you can use it.

Here's what you'll want to do:

1. Cut out the shape for your wreath. You can make your wreath a circle, oval, or even a square. The choice is yours. You'll do this with the Poster board, card board, or foam core.

The three materials suggested were chosen for your so that you would have a material choice that would work with the type of project you were wanting to do. If you are wanting a quick fun project, that you will not be keeping from year to year, then use card board or poster board. Both of these are disposable and either inexpensive or free. If you would like something a little nicer, use the foam core board. This can be found with poster board and matte board material at your local craft store. If you can not find it, a sales associate should be able to help you. This is basically two pieces of poster board sandwiched around a 1/8 inch layer of foam. It is very durable and can be cut with an exacto knife.

2. Next, trace the hands of each member of your family. And cut out the shapes. If you are doing a large wreath with a small family, then you will need more than one pair of each person's hands. Cut multiples if needed. For this, you will use either colored paper, craft foam, or felt in autumn colors.

If you are wanting to do this fast, easy, and with out much expense, you will use construction paper. If you want a nicer quality, with out huge cost, and may not keep this from year to year, then you may want scrap book paper. If you will keep this for several years, then you will likely want to use craft foam or felt.

If you do not want to pay for craft foam or felt, but want a nicer finished product, then you can use a technique called Paper Toile. To do this, take your hand prints cut from scrapbook paper and lay them front side down, onto your computer's mouse pad. Then take a rounded surface similar to the tip of a sharpie lid and trace around the handprint. You will do this about an 1/8 to a 1/16 of an inch form the edge of the paper. Begin softly, and practice on a scrap page, till you get the right pressure. If you are patient, you will be able to create a rounded effect on the edges of your handprints. This will give them a little extra depth and add a nice finished detail to your wreath.

3. Once all of your handprints are cut out, lay them out on your wreath so that your wreath shape is covered. Now you can glue this down.

4. It's time to embellish! It's also time to use your imagination. You can change the whole mood of your wreath based on how you embellish it. Buttons placed in small clusters of 1 to 3 around your wreath would have cute, hand-crafted feel. If you used pipe cleaners (maybe swirled into a circle) and pom poms you are creating a much more lighthearted and whimsical feel. Or you could use berries and bows. This would create a sophisticated affect. The choice is yours.

And, as always, you are only limited by what you can imagine. Lay out your options, if you don't like the look, don't glue them down, change them to something else. Most important of all, have fun.

If you have enjoyed this kids craft idea, please visit http://www.kidsactivityalley.blogspot.com to find and share more ideas for kids crafts and kids activities. You'll also find kids book reviews and parent discussion on the site. Look forward to seeing you there.