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Since I also have fibromyalgia, my slow cooker is my favorite piece of kitchen equipment. In fact, I have three. I used all of them and cooked Monday through Thursday, so I only did a few dishes a day. I mostly used recipes from Stephanie O'Dea's A Year of Slow Cooking blog. I made her cranberry sauce, though I threw in grated orange peel for extra zing, crustless pumpkin pie, turkey breast in white wine and butter, using a light and dark meat turkey roast, and roasted vegetables, using a mix of green beans, Brussels sprouts, and baby carrots. The turkey was Butterball and came with a GF gravy packet. I usually make a brown gravy, but I decided to give that a try, and it turned out really good.

I made mashed potatoes with a "recipe" my sister and I have been working on for the past several years' worth of holidays. Slow cook three to five pounds of potatoes with about a cup of broth and a few heads' worth of garlic cloves until you can easily mash the potatoes with a fork and the cloves are shiny and golden. Throw in four ounces of cream cheese or sour cream. Mash that all together with a masher if you like a chunky texture, or use an immersion blender if you like smoother potatoes. Then, grate in Asiago cheese to taste. Don't add salt until after this step, since Asiago is so salty. After that, add horseradish to taste. Sis and I usually use creamed horseradish rather than grated, since it's easier to mix in and get a good distribution. These potatoes make great leftovers, since the flavors continue to blend and develop over time.

I'm actually not the world's biggest fan of pie, either the crust or filling, intrigued as I was by the idea of pumpkin pie filling as, essentially, baked custard. So, while I planned to eat it with whipped cream, I thought it could also use something else. I had eggnog, so I figured I could make a sauce. I came across this recipe for eggnog caramel sauce which I honestly had a hard time not just eating by itself with a spoon.

Since it's just me, I have a ton of leftovers too. I think I'll be portioning some out for freezer quart bags tomorrow, but I'm also looking forward to dinner tonight!