Thanksgiving

Every year I fail to capture the deliciousness of our feast on film. This year we had some friends over who were staying in town. We had a potluck-style meal. Here's the one and only photo I thought to catch at the last moment.

So we had some cheese and meats and olives and shrimp cocktail for appetizers.

Lane and I took care of our thanksgiving staples - turkey with an herby onion mixture underneath the skin, sinful mashed potatoes and gravy, spinach gratin, and stuffing, which will forever be known as hippie stuffing thanks to my brother, David. It is my favorite part of thanksgiving. This year I used rosemary and olive oil sourdough bread, spicy italian sausage, toasted pine nuts and pecans, dried apricots, fresh cranberries, apples, onion, celery, fennel and portobello mushrooms with parsley and sage and thyme and rosemary, moistened with some unfiltered apple juice. mmm.

Alex and Matt brought some fabulous champagne, the shrimp cocktail, wine, a turnip mash and brussel sprouts and our friend Patti brought a roasted butternut squash soup and fresh, homemade cranberry sauce.

After gorging ourselves silly, we took a break and then feasted on Pumpkin Crunch, a recipe from Malia which has since become a Thanksgiving essential, and homemade apple pie and homemade vanilla ice cream, courtesy of Alex and Matt as well.

It was a fabulous day with good friends, laughs, and very full tummies.

Lane was very nervous about having enough turkey for leftovers and feeding everyone. So, he bought an 18 lb turkey (We were 5 adults). We only cut half of the turkey and only ate HALF of that! We are going to be eating thanksgiving for a while now, and we can't wait!