Thanksgiving!

[firstfrost]

Yay, thanksgiving. Eleven people (me, harrock, tirinian, harrock's mom, desireearmfeldt, fredrickegerman, rifmeister, Mrs. rifmeister, Kye, and the neighbors) is a little crowded for the dining room table, so there was an Manifest Destiny expansionist movement towards the coffee table, which made for awkward conversations but probably worked out for the best. Eleven people is a good size for a party, though - the conversation can bounce along, sometimes split up and reform, and it's not too crowded to just sit around. As was the case in the Birthday Anti-potluck, enough obsessive preparation beforehand leads to a lull in the afternoon before dinner, so I'm not quite at top speed in the final stretch. Must work on precise timing. Reheating things in the microwave feels like cheating, but the Magic Reheat Button is really quite the convenience.

Things:

• Ham, with cherry/stout sauce. This is my not-turkey Thanksgiving standard. While ham is pretty no-brainer easy to make, it does take up the oven for a long time at an unhelpful temperature.
• Three-mushroom stuffing. This was tasty, though the sausage/chestnut stuffing might be a little better.
• Brussels sprouts with chestnut sauce. Brussels sprouts are the unloved vegetable of my childhood, but I'm liking them better now. They're definitely improved by being browned, instead of just boiled.
• Cheddar pepper scones, pretending to be dinner rolls.
• Green beans with marcona almonds and lemon. This variant involved roasting, and browning improves everything (see Brussels sprouts). Still, I think secretly I'm hoping to find a recipe in which they taste more exciting than green beans, and I haven't found one yet.
• Onions with mustard sauce. Little boiling onions shoot out their middles when boiled! Like those flatworms, er, no, I'm not continuing that analogy.
• Parsnips with, um, it was a yummy sauce, I forgot to add the thyme at the end.
• Mashed potatoes with a shallot confit thing. The confit was very tasty, but I think it might have spoiled the purity of the mashed potatoes. Can you tell I seem compelled to try and add "and with"s to all the basic vegetables?
• Roasted red pepper salad. This was the only thing that I didn't particularly like, though other people thought it was good. The red peppers were fun to make, though. You broil them a little, and then their skin just comes right off. Not like CHESTNUTS.
• Yummy pie (squash and blueberry (no, two pies, not one squash/blueberry pie)) from the multi-talented mrs. rifmeister, and baklava rolls from the neighbors. Mmm.
• And, fredrickegerman says that the ginger currant wine is a Traditional Holiday Beverage in the UK, so we drank it all. Take that, all you twinknj people who kept making hairy eyeballs at it!
• Am very punchy. Clearly bedtime.

But, before bed, I give thanks. I am thankful for family and friends, and the time to enjoy their company. I am thankful for so many things, from the material to the personal to the opportunities I have, that it is impossible to enumerate. But most of all, it is the people in my life, near and far, who make my life so worth being thankful for. So, thank you. :)

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

No, the onion compote on the mashed potatoes was a brilliant idea, you should kep it. :)

[twe.livejournal.com]

The red peppers were fun to make, though. You broil them a little, and then their skin just comes right off. Not like CHESTNUTS.

Well your red peppers were much better behaved than mine were. Some bits of the skin burned, some bits came off, and some bits stubbornly refused to come off.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

How burned is burned? When I broil red peppers, parts of the skin are definitely quite black, but it's not really burned.

[merastra.livejournal.com]

I've tried the charring the peppers trick too. The times that I tried it, the parts where the skin stuck corresponded to the parts that weren't as well charred. The insides were good though, once the black came off.

[twe.livejournal.com]

The charred skin bits did not have good structural integrity. I think everything would have been fine, if only peppers had been perfectly flat, which these were not. Not even close.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

The actual black skin on my peppers didn't have structural integrity, but it was no longer connected to the inside of the pepper, so that was okay. The best areas for peeling were the ones on the perimeter around the black skin. The directions were to peel them as soon as you could manage to touch them, under running water; I think that may have helped.