Our Thanksgiving Dinner
Just popping in to share a little recap of what we ate for Thanksgiving! It was the most triumphant day of my home cooking career to date. Seven dishes on the table at the same time. Nothing raw, nothing burned, all the correct temperature for serving. And I love that our plates were full of colorful vegetables! Are my pictures great? They most certainly are not. I dedicated my usual 5 minutes to the effort before abandoning all hope and digging in while the food was still hot. I’m okay with it.
Here’s what we ate:
Chicken (roughly 5lbs). I used the marinade from The Woks of Life 5 Spice Turkey, applied 24 hours in advance. The spices went perfectly with our Thanksgiving spread. I put a bed of brussels sprouts and new potatoes in the bottom of my cast iron with a little slick of butter so nothing would burn before the drippings started gathering. I mixed the excess marinade with a few tablespoons of butter and brushed the chicken every 15 minutes or so during cooking (1 hour at 425-450ºF). The chicken was amazing, and the sprouts and potatoes were a sneaky favorite!
Broccoli Slaw via Smitten Kitchen, made almost exactly as she describes. The buttermilk dressing is so delicious. I love that this dish keeps so well for leftovers. I’m not personally a fan of raw broccoli, but I really like this slaw.
Stovetop stuffing. Yep, the only not-from scratch item on our table. I am unashamed of my love for stovetop stuffing!
Brussels Sprouts Salad via Smitten Kitchen, which is such a bright addition to any holiday table. The acidity is great, and there are so many good textures going on: apple! toasted nuts! pomegranate seeds! pickled red onion!
Miso Vegetables via The Woks of Life was the surprise hit of our meal. Their recipe is for root vegetables and focuses on carrots and beets. I don’t like beets, so I used new potatoes, a few carrots, and a sweet potato. The sweet potato got a little smushy in the oven, but we will absolutely be repeating this dish in the future. I roasted for more like an hour.
Unstuffed Mushroom Casserole via Smitten Kitchen, subbing a sharp cheddar for comte cheese. I loved this one, but I’m also a huge fan of mushrooms. Joey thought it was just okay, which is fine, because more leftovers for me! I probably should have halved the recipe, but I don’t have a 1 quart baking dish.
Cranberry Salsa via Home Made Interest was our cooking snack, but it’s also a nice accompaniment to the chicken. I use 1/4 cup sugar, skip the scallions, and double the orange juice. It’s really delicious and stores well!
Not pictured: Holiday Punch via A Farmgirl’s Kitchen, which is very sweet but delicious. I mixed the juices and white wine in advance, and we topped ours with plain sparkling water rather than mixing in Sprite. It kept the mix from going flat on us and cut the sweetness quite a bit.
Not pictured: Pumpkin Tres Leches Cake via The Woks of Life, which is my favorite thing I’ve baked in a good long while. I baked it in two 9” pans and stacked them. Worked like a dream! The spiced cream probably wasn’t the best icing for a stacked cake, but beauty wasn’t my goal here: deliciousness was. Mission accomplished.
Most of the recipes I used can be found on my roundup healthy(ish) recipes for holiday side dishes.
I loved spending time in the kitchen with Joey. We had a blast hanging out and cooking on Wednesday and Thursday. I enjoyed every bit of how impressed he was with what I’d created during all our chopping and chatting. My favorite part of the day was watching him eat the first bite of each dish and then making him rank them (his side dish rankings: miso potatoes, sprouts salad, broccoli slaw, mushroom casserole).
This year was different, and sometimes not easy. But I’m thankful for him and for our time spent together. For the blessings of food and home and comfort.
