We decided to keep things simple & skip the turkey, so Thanksgiving morning was pretty relaxed. We even slept in. Matt & Amanda stopped by for nibbles & champagne around noon, before going to a party hosted by other friends, & then Susie & Paul came over to Mars for dinner, after having visited other friends first.
The night before, Adrienne baked some beautiful cornbread for the stuffing:
And I pulled up a feral carrot that I recently found in the garden bed where I had grown carrots over the summer:
I was hoping it could be part of dinner somehow, but it was too gnarly & had too many bug nibbles. Unappetizing.
The next morning, Adrienne got started roasting vegetables for a gravy, & I assembled the table of nibbles. Zoey again tried her best to help by curling up in the little bit of sunlight on the kitchen floor:
Here is the table of nibbles, featuring some ridiculously delicious additions brought by Matt & Amanda:
Clockwise from the top left: cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto, celery sticks with cream cheese & spanish olives, tamari roasted almonds, freshly baked baguette, killer sicilian olives, cornichons, cheese & salami plate, more olives, mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto.
While we celebrated, Zoey got a treat of her own -- a giant bone from the butcher's:
When Susie & Paul arrived around 4pm with big bags of mouth-watering ingredients, the main cooking of the day began:
Sauteed kale & onions were put into a baking dish...
...then covered by cheddar-gruyere cheese & big crispy bread chunks, & baked.
Cornbread stuffing!
Instead of a turkey, Adrienne stuffed some quail.
Ready for action!
Just out of the oven.
Susie & Paul are vegetarians, so they cooked up a tofurkey.
Delicious!
Delicious!
As we started moving the wine, silverware, & Susie's incredible homemade plum chutney into the dining room, Zoey, again so helpful, plunked herself down right next to the table.
"If I lie here quietly, someone might trip over me & one of those quail will land in my mouth."
A lovely dinner with lovely friends (& a lovely dog who mostly wasn't a nuisance):
But Thanksgiving isn't over on Thursday -- just as important as Thanksgiving Dinner is Thanksgiving Breakfast the next day. Adrienne always takes the leftover mashed potatoes & makes them into cheese-stuffed croquettes. Add bacon, & a couple of eggs over easy, & you have the most important breakfast of the year:
I am thankful for truly wonderful friends & family, for a silly dog, for Mars, & I am thankful that Adrienne knows how to make croquettes.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Croquettes ... yum. I remember we had those one year for a new year's eve party. So delicious. Those nibbles were hella delicious as well.
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