Giving thanks with a grateful heart…
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I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving day with your loved ones; full of fancy feasting and lively conversations. I spent the day with my family and everyone outdid themselves – as usual (see pictures below). I experimented with a couple tasty new recipes that I will share with you soon.
I am so thankful this year for God’s mercy, love and faithfulness; He provides abundantly! I am thankful for my family, my friends (this includes YOU!), my church and the fact that I am about 3/4 done with my nursing program – Yikes!!!
I am thankful to live in this wonderful, free country where we can live (and blog) peacefully. I’d love to know about your thanksgiving day and any traditions that you have.
If any of my recipes graced your families table this year, let me know how it went over. I hope these snaps bring you ideas for the upcoming Christmas holiday!
Green beans with almonds:
Svetlana’s Stuffed mushrooms (ooh la la!):
Aunt Anna’s Tortellini Salad:
Staples – (I hope you don’t ask what these next two pictures are, even though the second one is from an undesirable angle)
I actually scooted these onto the edge of my plate and ate them last. Shrimp is my weakness.
Meat Nalesniki (on the to-do list):
The red cabbage “wreath salad” – I’ll be posting this one:
“Wreath Salad” After mixing:
This jello will find it’s way onto the blog as well.
An experiment gone good (except for my horrendous decorating skills)! Stay tuned..
The guys didn’t make it into this picture; sorry!
Ok, now on to Christmas (my favorite holiday for which I start counting down immediately after New Years). More than a little obsessed? Heck YES!!
Natasha Kravchuk
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
Hi Natasha
any idea how to prepare duck?
I have not made a duck before Nadia so I cannot give advice on that.
Thank you!
Hi, Natasha, you promised once give the recipe for Aunt Anna’s Tortellini Salad. I see there tomatoes and broccoli, may be cheese, I’m not sure. But what else?
Summertime is a good time for such salad.
I haven’t forgotten! 🙂 I’m putting the ingredients on my grocery list for this week. I’ll try to post it as soon as I can. Thanks for the reminders 😉
You have some amazing recipes, I’ve already tried quite a few of them, my husband loves potatoes so the whipped potatoes with mushrooms was a big hit 🙂 I wanted to ask how do u prepare your rice for the turkey stuffing if that’s what you stuff it with?
May God Bless and your family!!!
I’m glad you enjoyed the potatoes. Surprisingly, my mom has never made a turkey stuffing before. We never had that growing up.
Love your blog! Visit it frequently. Could you please post the recipe for Aunt Anna’s Tortellini Salad? It looks scrumptious!
Hi Natasha you’re food is incrediable…Keep up the good work! Thank you so much for spending your time and posting all the recipes! Whats the shrimp recipe that you put up from thanksgiving dinner? It looks awesome…. thanks again =)
The shrimp my sister made was just shrimp sauteed in lots of butter with garlic and a little salt and pepper. Try the garlic and herb recipe as well: my very favorite shrimp recipe ever!!
This blog is amazing. Thank you so much for posting these great recipes. Everything I tried from your website turned out great. Thank you again. Your aunt tortelini salad looks great, can’t wait to try making it. May God bless you Natasha and your family for doing this.
I cant wait to try that Wreath Salad.. what a beautiful presentation, love those vibrant colors. Ohh and that Jello, looks way good..
Your food is incredible. I cant wait ti try more cuz i pretty much tried every recip of yours lol
good food is essential….so are pants, i will leave u with this thought…….i enjoyed ur company at thanksgiving, i am very thankful for a talented sister like u! keep up the good word…..i also blame u for my recent weight gain, the only reason im allowing u to live after doing this to me, is because i llove david and he needs a mommy
That’s the funniest comment I’ve ever received! Hahaha! Thanks for sparing my life.
Oh and the stuffed mushrooms look so yummy. I love mushrooms. Would love that recipe up ASAP also if you can 🙂 Thank you!!
Thank you for running this blog. It helps out a lot. And please post the wreath recipe as soon as you can. Because I’m having graduation party in 3 weeks so I would love to make that and amaze my guests. It looks beautiful especially for this time of year.
Happy Thanksgiving! Looks like you had a wonderful holiday with your family with abundant, delicious food. Ours was lovely too! I agree, we have so much to be thankful for!
I LOVE your recipes … keep them coming!!!
Thank you Irina – I will do my best!
Mmmm! Looks like a few recipes in here I might like to add to our holiday table! The wreath salad- what a wonderful idea. Soon with the recipe, I hope? and Aunt Anna’s Tortellini Salad looks like a wonderful potluck dish. We are celebrating with our Thanksgiving dinner today, Saturday.
Our Thanksgiving traditions: Our children go with their inlaws on Thursday, and usually we go and serve at a charity dinner on Thursday. This year I took a work shift for a young girl who wanted to spend the holiday with her family as my service. By celebrating on Saturday, we have the same feeling, but no conflicts with our large family’s schedule. For food, we always have sweet potato pone, wild rice dressing and a home-grown turkey, along with all the staples.
Like you, Christmas is my favorite and we have already decorated- our family exchanges Christmas gifts today also because everyone will be spread around the country by the end of December, and also so that we can concentrate on service and remembering the “reason for the season” during the month of December. This year my husband and I celebrate our first empty-nest Christmas so perhaps some of our traditions may change. We will probably have a party with our Russian friends, and I think I will add some of your tasty recipes!
Thanks for the beautiful post-
Margo
Thank you for sharing Margo. I love that your traditions include giving to others. You remind me of the proverbs woman 🙂
This was such a nice post…….your food for Thanksgiving was amazing looking and very delicious.
…yes, we should be thankful for the life we have here and freedom. I’ve never been to the Ukraine but my parents have told me lots of stories. I’m also very thankful and grateful to live here and appreciate everyday.
You have a very beautiful family…..Irka.
Thank you! I hope to visit Ukraine one day so I can really understand and appreciate how truly blessed we are in the US.