Thanksgiving

[firstfrost]

Our Thanksgiving was neither as large nor as epically gourmet as others I've read about, but it was fun nonetheless. harrock and tirinian and I, and harrock's Mom, and ilhander and Katya and Edrick.

• Snacks of various pickled things, and cheese and crackers, nuts, pate, that sort of thing. I like the whole wheat Carr's crackers, but they're secretly a cookie in disguise.
• Turkey. It finished earlier than I expected, thus causing a mad vegetable dash at the end. A little dry. But okay.
• Sausage and chestnut stuffing. I liked the way this came out. And there's lots of it left over. This was my first experience with really deglazing a pan. Wow, that works!
• Mashed potatoes. I should remember that potatoes take half an hour to start boiling.
• Bejeweled Squash (kelkyag gets credit for finding this recipe, which I love.
• Carrots with pimentos and horseradish.
• Green beans with roasted onions. The roasted-onion sauce was time-consuming but tasty and very smoky-flavored.
• Carrots with brown sugar mustard glaze
• Spinach salad with lots of little fiddly bits like toasted walnuts and bacon and gorgonzola
• Bread and honey butter. (okay, so it turned out to be cheese bread and butter, and optional honey butter for those willing to put up with the clash).
• Cranberry sauce (some homemade with cherries, some from a can for family tradition).
• Ginger honey pumpkin pie. It sounds more interesting than it turned out; it was mostly pumpkin pie with ginger-flecked texture.
• Cranberry crumble with fall fruits (otherwise known as apples and pears). This was pretty good.

For a kitchen with no counter space, it performed admirably well. And I got to realize at one point that I needed more bowls! ilhander demonstrated a Fit of the Vapors on the fainting couch, and tried to convince me that all fainting couches have the handedness that they do because you always faint to the right. I'm not sure if I believe him.