A Thanksgiving Feast
Happy day after Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with good eats and family ‘n’ friends. Peter and I have been running around like mad since last Wednesday. After returning from Colorado on Monday, we hopped over to Saint Louis for an overnight trip Tuesday/Wednesday (will share details later) and spent yesterday catching up on laundry and cooking. I’m not sure how I managed to use eleven pairs of socks over the course of seven days, but there we are.
Before I confuse you in the coming days with a mess of trip recaps and backlogged recipes, I’ll share yesterday’s Thanksgiving feast with you. To begin: to whom does this creepy shadow belong?
Why, it’s Peter, preparing the Big Green Egg for the turkey while clad in his smoking sweatshirt.
While the turkey was smoking away, Peter rolled pie crust on a granite slab to keep it chilled (essential for flaky pie crust).
He also made a breadless stuffing with wild rice and Poblano chilis. The recipe is from Rancho Gordo and can be found here.
Wide shot!
For veggies, I cooked up my dad’s caramelized corn and honey carrots.
This is the first Thanksgiving we haven’t spent with Peter’s parents in eight years (the first ever for Peter). Living halfway across the country from them makes travel a little difficult. We prepared for a Thanksgiving dinner with just the two of us, but then found out our friends Arden and Dan would be in town. Dinner for four!
They brought an incredible squash casserole that I took seconds and thirds of (recipe at end of post with Dan’s permission, adapted from this recipe):
and an Illini dog biscuit for the puppas.
We all drooled over Peter’s turkey, smoked over six hours to tasty perfection:
My plate:
Clockwise from bottom: honey carrots, caramelized corn, squash casserole, smoked turkey breast, homemade cranberry sauce, seed bread, stuffing.
After our 3 pm dinner, we broke out a cooperative board game (Pandemic) Peter got in Colorado.
We had an inordinate amount of fun hopping around the world eradicating (and spreading … ) disease. To burn a few calories, there’s nothing like heated debates over whether we should help cure disease in Canada or leave them to their fate. Sadly, despite playing the game three times, we lost in progressively more impressive ways each time. Rematch?
It was somewhere between the toils of Game 1 and Game 2 that we paused for apple and pumpkin pie. The apple pie is Peter’s dad’s special recipe, while the pumpkin pie recipe is from the back of the can. Classy! I didn’t take a picture of my portion topped with homemade ice cream, so here instead are woefully inadequate pictures of the leftovers.
After this Thanksgiving feast, Peter and I nibbled on veggies and water for second dinner. They were good.
Since we send Arden and Dan home with leftovers, we don’t have the usual leftover-stuffed fridge that has us scratching our heads, wondering what to do with them. Peter likes turkey bacon sandwiches, so we’ll probably chow down on a few of those. Otherwise, it’s back to regular cooking this weekend!
Dan’s Roasted Butternut Squash
 Prep Time: 10 minutes
 Cook Time: 1 hour
 Keywords: roast bake side vegetarian
Ingredients (8 servings)
- 2 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 3/4 cup heavy cream (can use low fat or skim milk)
- 1 tsp dried sage
- 1 tablespoon dried rosemary
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper, ground
- 2/3 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400°F. Mix squash with cream or milk, sage, rosemary, salt, and pepper in a 2-quart shallow baking dish. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
Stir in half of cheese. Sprinkle remainder on top. Roast, uncovered, until squash is tender and beginning to brown, about 20 minutes. Let stand about 5-10 minutes before serving.
Q: How was your Thanksgiving?
Smoked turkey?! That sounds awesome. Was it juicy?
It was! The Big Green Egg keeps things juicy when you smoke (which typically dries foods out). It would have been a little juicier if we had brined it first, like we have in previous years.
What I wouldn’t give to try that green egg-smoked turkey!! Oh MAN! It looks amazing. We had two butternut squash dishes on our table this year. One Ill be posting next week.
I loved your idea for turkey enchiladas, by the way!! I bet they are great with SMOKED turkey!
You had so much good food!! I kind of wish I had eaten at your place. 😛
oooh- I’m loving that idea for stuffing!
Yay for Thanksgiving recap posts! Because it’s not enough that I cook and eat a giant meal, I also like reading about other people’s giant meals 🙂 So glad you guys went all out, even when it was supposed to be the two of you. I have never heard of the big green egg but am fascinated. Off to do some research! 🙂