Slice, wrap, saute, serve. What is easier than that?  This was the first time I’ve ever prepared this delightful appetizer and plan to keep it in the rotation.  It was impossible to mess up – particularly while distracted by family laughter and conversation!  

As I’ve noted here before, my family LOVES board games.  Like, really nerdy strategy ones.  We are all grown adults and yet we spend the majority of our time together hudded around a table strategizing and scheming and engaged in healthy competitive banter.  Growing up, our family game night entailed ordering chinese food, pouring ginger ale and playing one game selected by each member of the fam. We played everything from Sorry, to Canasta, to Life, to Mastermind, to Risk and more.  Then, in college, my brother and I discovered Settlers of Catan, which was the launching point into a host of adult strategy games like Ticket to Ride, Dominion, and Puerto Rico.  This year, we have found a new category of ‘collaborative games’ with our current favorite being Pandemic!  What a treat to align our competitive drive with the goal of saving the world from a disease outbreak.

In reflecting on this holiday, I realized the parallel between our game playing and our new collaborative take on meal prep.  For the second year in a row, the 5 of us worked in unchoreographed coordination to create a meal of our family staples along with new experimental dishes.

For my contribution I kept things safe and made these wrapped asparagus as well as some roasted sweet potatoes and acorn squash.  Dad was in charge of making Mom’s cranberry pear relish, which is a mandatory Thanksgiving item and is chunky with a sweet yet tangy bite.   He also made a curried broccoli and potato soup, which was light on the spoon and filled with flavor.

My husband opted for an experiment of crab stuffed mushrooms (which I will post next), as well as his favorite Thanksgiving item of mashed potatoes.  With the decisions in his court he used red bliss potatoes, kept the skin on, and filled them with cream. They were thick and rich and perfect fried up into a pancake the next morning for breakfast with an egg on it.

My brother and his fiance combined their efforts and made a range of dishes including jalapeno poppers, the turkey, and the stuffing.  For the poppers they brought a fancy pepper holder, which then went onto the grill for a nicely charred and spicy hot bite filled with warm cream cheese. The turkey was brined using the same recipe as last year, resulting in juicy meat, but once again there were no pan drippings from the bird.  Learning from last year we did a bit of research and threw together a gravy with a bit of butter, stock, flour, and spices, along with sauteed mushrooms. Use of the immersion blender created an easy-to-pour and creamy rich gravy.  For the stuffing (my favorite item on the table) they used her dad’s recipe, which included bacon, apples, and a healthy amount of spices. Enough said. It did the trick, and I was sure to sneak extra leftovers in my take home bag.

If that wasn’t enough already my future sister-in-law also made us her family’s favorite cheesy corn as well as TWO pies–one squash and one apple with a crumble topping–with sides of homemade whipped cream and ice cream.

I am thankful for my family, for our evolving traditions, and thankful that my heart was as full as my belly.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of asparagus
• 6 oz of prosciutto

Steps and Notes:

1. Bend the ends off the bottom of each spear of asparagus
2. Slice the prosciutto horizontally (along the center fat line)
3. Wrap each asparagus spear in the prosciutto starting at the bottom and winding up to the top
4. Place into a frying pan and sear for 2-3 minutes until the prosciutto is seared (flip once)
5. Serve warm!

Thoughts for Next Time:

• Double the recipe so that everyone can have several of these crunchy and salty snacks