Thanksgiving Feasting 2012

To kick the day off, we all slept in.  Edward, Jennifer, and I went downtown on Wednesday night to a bar, where Dave met up with us for a late night drink.  My folks graciously stayed at our house with sleeping Eddie until after midnight.  Everyone except Eddie awoke very sleepy on Thanksgiving morning.

For breakfast I made some gluten free pancakes, two kinds of sausage patties, and a giant frittata using late season tomatoes from my dad's garden.  It was a delicious way to start a marathon cooking day.
This year, everyone helped cook something, which was nice for me since I usually end up doing 95% of the cooking.  I think I probably did only about 75% this year.  

Dave and Jennifer made the chocolate mousse.

Jennifer making mousse.

We had soooooooooo many side dishes that we could have completely skipped the meat.  Because of Edward and Jennifer's food allergies, we had chicken instead of turkey and everything else (besides the bread) was gluten free.  I really don't think anyone would have been able to tell it was all gluten free.  Here's what we made:

• Roasted chicken
• Yams
• Stuffing (made with gluten free bread cubes, sausages and olives)
• Greens (mostly from my dad's garden)
• Two kinds of cranberry sauce
• My dad's pickled green beans
• My dad's fermented green tomatoes
• Gravy (roux made with sweet rice flour)
• Stuffed mushrooms
• Broccolette slaw
• Warm Brussels sprouts salad (the BEST way to eat this veg)
• Green salad with apples and poppy seed dressing (given to us by the neighbors as a thank you for hosting their kids while they cooked)
• Olive focaccia
• Braided wheat bread
• Olive wheat bread
• "Pumpkin" pie with gluten free crust (I used butternut squash instead and you couldn't tell)
• Apple pie with gluten free crust (as link above but made with pecans instead of coconut)
• Chocolate mousse

With 7 people we didn't even finish off one chicken.  Who needs meat when you have so many side dishes?

Thanksgiving buffet, with more on the table.

I had hoped we'd eat at 5:30 pm and for the FIRST time ever in the history of me cooking a giant meal, we sat down a half hour early.  

My mom set the table with her mother's cross-stitched linens and my dad's mom's silver and china.  

The silverware was "polished" using my mom's grandma's aluminum pan.  Edward, Dave, and Jennifer were in charge of the silverware; they were really into it.  Unlike traditional polishing, which removes some of the silver metal (thereby wearing it down), this electrochemical reaction just converts the dark silver sulfide (formed from the silverware and sulfur in the air) back to shiny silver.  Ta da, so fun!

Chemistry in action!

Jennifer was so excited about this technique because she and Edward have real silver flatware as their everyday utensils and she doesn't want to have to polish it all the time.

Eddie was nap-free that whole day and he surprised us by doing quite well during dinner.  I almost let him watch a few shows while us adults ate our magnificent meal because I feared he'd be cranky and restless.  As my dad said, "it'd be better to be thankful he wasn't ruining dinner than to wish he wasn't at the table in the first place."  It made me laugh, especially when he offered to justify anything that way for me.  After getting up from his seat a few times, he settled down to eat, drink cider and milk from his own wine glasses, and tell us lots of stories about bears breaking into our house.  

Regaling Uncle and Auntie about some big bears.

Toward the end of the meal, Eddie trotted off to his room to get a stack of dress up hats for us all to wear.  

After Eddie was in bed that night, us adults settled into the living room with some dessert and a rented copy of The Expendables 2.  It was crap so I ended up going to bed at 9:30 pm, shortly after my folks headed back to their hotel.  I was exhausted from cooking all day and it was sooooooooooo nice to assume a horizontal position.

Shoot, everyone was exhausted.

The recipe was called "death by chocolate" and I believe it.  We omitted the chocolate cookie crust to make it gluten free and it was already way too rich.

If it looks like pumpkin pie, and it tastes like pumpkin pie, then it is pumpkin pie...even if it's make with roasted butternut squash instead, right?

I am forever thankful for my supportive and quirky family, my hard working husband, our incomes, the freedoms of our country, our rambunctious Eddie, our health, and much, much more.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!