baked apples with pomegranates + pistachios

I just found out yesterday that I am cooking + hosting Thanksgiving this year. Despite the last minute notice (ahh .. panic!), I could not be more excited. 

For the past few years, we have gone out to eat for Thanksgiving with the whole family. It may sound weird, especially for someone who cooks for a living, but we loved it. We would get all dressed up and have an absolutely stunning meal, and after hours of feasting we could simply get up from the table and go home. No mess, no dishes, we would get all of the fun and none of the responsibility. It had become our new favorite family tradition.

But, to be honest, a small part of me missed cooking for Thanksgiving. It's obvious I love to cook, but Thanksgiving is the opportunity to cook one of the most special meals of the year. It's the chance for me to wake up super early to prep, to set a beautiful table, and go overboard on dessert. It's the excuse for me to cook way more food than we could ever eat and not feel like I overdid it.

So when Michael called me up yesterday to tell me that we could not get a reservation at the place we've been going to for the past three years, I got really excited. 

I really should be menu planning and shopping right now, but before I go off and do that I wanted to share these apples with you. I actually came up with this recipe for a weekly series I am doing for The Conversation, but I really wanted to share these here as well because I think these baked apples will definitely make an excellent (+ healthy) addition to the Thanksgiving dessert table ... in between all the pies and cookies, of course. 

To get the recipe for baked apples with pomegranates + pistachios ... click here.