Pat and I started off the morning running a 5 miler, which let us feel slightly less guilty about the hours to come. After a quick shower, I spent the next three hours prepping our contributions to the Turkey Day dinner.
Besides the standard turkey (which was huge and cooked beautifully) and stuffing (one of my greatest weaknesses), we had Dina's green beans with caramelized onions and a cranberry ring. I contributed rosemary mashed sweet potatoes with shallots and nutty warm brussels sprouts salad. The potatoes were yummy...apparently "mashing" potatoes with a hand mixer makes them super fluffy, and rosemary is delicious with basically any orange veg. No one believed the only thing in the sweets themselves were rosemary, salt, and pepper. The brussels were surprisingly delicious as well. I love these things, but this particular recipe even got a "yum" out of my mom, who *hates* brussels sprouts, and Pat had a whole bowl for leftovers the next day! Both recipes I made as written, with the exception of a little less olive oil (2 T is a LOT!) for caramelizing the shallots, and a smaller amount of breadcrumbs and walnuts than the salad called for (otherwise they would have overwhelmed the dish). Both of these were super easy to make and I would highly recommend either if you're looking for a dish to contribute to a future TD shindig! Sadly, we were far too excited to eat and forgot to take pictures...the only one that make it into the camera were the sprouts.
Dessert was just ridiculous. We brought a famous, spicy, Daly family pumpkin pie, along with a ridiculously complicated and beautiful version with struesel and a ginger snap layer that my mom made. You guys. It's called "pumpkin pie spectacular." Seriously. She also brought her famous chocolate-dipped pistachio biscotti. Of course, two pies and cookies were not enough, so we also had for dessert a gorgeous three-layer strawberry cake (a little too sweet for me, although, after sitting at the table long enough, I managed to pick through the entire slice anyway) and an double-crust apple pie. The pecan never even made it to the table...and believe me, my thighs are thankful for that.
It was a cornucopia, to be sure. And I'm so thankful to have been able to share it with so many loved ones!
Sounds delicious! Glad to see others getting in on the Brussels Sprouts wagon. We've been having them for holidays for many, many years.
ReplyDeleteMy personal Thanksgiving menu included Brussels Sprouts (steamed halves, then sauteed with onion, garlic, and bacon - topped with lemon juice and parmesan), "Southern Style" green beans (slow-cooked in beef broth with onions and more bacon), cornbread dressing, sweet-potato casserole, and gravy (spiked with pinot grigio). And a standard homemade pumpkin pie for dessert.
But the kicker was really Thanksgiving breakfast! We got a waffle iron for a wedding gift, so I broke it in with a batch of Red Velvet waffles with Cinnamon-Cream Cheese butter. O. M. G! They were over the top!