Summer Thanksgiving Party!

I decided to throw a Summer Thanksgiving party because Thanksgiving is just too good of a holiday to only celebrate once a year. Plus... everyone loves Thanksgiving food which left me not at all surprised when almost of the invites came and brought their delicious dishes! What did surprise me was that most of my friends said others were confused by what a Summer Thanksgiving party was.

Let me explain... I cooked a turkey, an apple pie, apple cider... a few other things and provided dishes as well as a place to meet. All the guest were required to bring a Thanksgiving dish to share. Dishes could only be made once and we ended up with mashed potatoes, ham, deviled eggs, croissants, appetizer platter, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, gravy, wine, beer, soda, cookies, salad and sweet potatoes. We all ate, drank and enjoyed several games of Apples to Apples.

Unfortunately I was a bit too busy to get ANY pictures until the end... and since I begged all of my guests to PLEASE take home the dish they brought I only have pictures (of what was left) of the things I made.

The turkey was fantastic and I give ALL of the credit to Alton Browns Good Eats Roast Turkey Recipe . Comments on the turkey... moist, delicious and I want this recipe. Pictured here is what was left of my turkey by the end of the night. 

I have shared the recipe for my apple pie before and its just so damn good that I have to share it again! Pictured here is what was left of the apple pie... I had to fight my man off of the last slice so I could just get this picture!

And last but certainly not least is the apple cider. While this picture may not be the best... everyone LOVED the cider. I used a few scoops of mulling spices and apple juice. The recipe calls for apple cider but cider is only sold during Thanksgiving season (apple cider versus apple juice). That was definitely a downside to having a Thanksgiving dinner during summer. Luckily there is not much of a difference between apple cider and apple juice... the cider was just a bit sweeter then normal. Here are several great mulling spices.

Would you ever have a Summer Thanksgiving Party? Are there other holidays you would like to celebrate (legitimately celebrate like my Summer Thanksgiving Party... obviously we would all love to have two Christmases or two Birthdays) more then once a year?