You want to have little appetizers out for guests before the main dinner occurs. This is one of my favorite parts, I love making perfect bites of flavor and I love people around me, interacting, with drinks and food in hand. 

When you think of Thanksgiving dinner, you think of comfort food. You think creamy, rich, savory, decadent. Nothing on that table should be light or diet... This is one of the very few days of the year when you allow yourself to indulge and eat your way into a self induced food coma. This butternut squash risotto gives you all those wonderful Thanksgiving feelings... it warms your soul, it makes you forget all the bad days of the year, it makes you believe that peace is really possible in the world... Except, its really not all bad for you! Seriously... the creaminess comes from the risotto itself and some chicken broth... the only "bad" things are a little olive oil and a little butter. AND risotto is gluten free! Lets get started!

Some things are just easier to get from a can, like beans or olives or hearts of palm... but cranberry sauce is so easy to make it home, and sooooo lacking the jelly movement and the the cylinder shape with little ridges on the outside and the squish gross sound it makes when you plop it out of the can. If thats your thang, then go for it. But c'mon! Doesn't this look and sound so much better? 

My main tip when cooking a big feast like Thanksgiving dinner is to make as much as possible in advance. This will save you the stress of pulling all your hair out when everything needs to be tended to at the same time. Cranberry sauce can be made the night before and stored away in the fridge! So lets get these holiday scents started in the kitchen yum!