I hope that everyone is having a great, safe, and delicious Thanksgiving this year! We had our dinner yesterday, so today I have time to relax and tell you all about it!
We decided to invite several friends over this year, and did a (mostly) 100-mile dinner. (“Mostly” because there was a demand for cranberry sauce, so I relented there. Also, the wine was not local, but I have an explanation for that. Most everything else came from the St. Norbert Farmers’ Market, so when I say “the market” in this post, that’s what I mean.
The menu I dreamt up was big. We had a LOT of food, but that way we made sure that no one went home hungry.
Turkey
Our turkey was from Silver Bridge Farm in Landmark, MB. We ordered it back in August so that we would commit to actually doing Thanksgiving. When I put our name down, we specified a “medium” turkey. When we arrived at the St. Norbert Farmers’ Market on Saturday to pick up our turkey, they had a sign asking everyone to get as large a turkey as your roaster would fit. Our roaster could hold up to 22lbs, so we ended up with a 21.88lb turkey. I’m not sure how to show scale on this thing, but here it was before it went into the oven:
I stuffed it with onions, sage and oregano from the market, and rosemary and parsley from our garden. That’s it. No salt, no brining, no butter under the skin… All I did was roast it upside down, breast down. It was in a 425F oven for 30 minutes, then a 325F oven for another three hours.
Now, all the calculators I’d seen said that a bird this size should take about 5 hours. But after three and a half hours it was done. Like, DONE. We called everyone in a panic and got them here quickly while the turkey rested, covered in foil and towels. When we sliced the bird, the breast meat was incredibly juicy. I am converted: turkeys go into the oven upside down from now on!
Stuffing
I made homemade stuffing. I got wild rice bread from the Bread Lady on Saturday, and chopped it up into cubes to dry overnight. Other than that, it was a basic dressing: celery and onions from the market in lots of butter, broth made from the turkey neck, some sauteed sage from the market, and parsley from the garden. It all went into a buttered casserole dish and was baked, covered, at 400F for about 40 minutes.
Potatoes
There seems to be a problem with local potatoes this year! Despite looking and looking, we could not find sweet potatoes at the market. I also wanted to do my lavender-coloured mashed potatoes just for the colourful interest, but we couldn’t find the blue potatoes either! *sigh* So, I made smashed red potatoes, which worked just fine.
Green Bean Casserole
This dish worried me, since my standard, classic green-bean casserole involves cans of cream of mushroom soup. Well, Alton Brown to the rescue! I made Alton’s from-scratch green-bean casserole with green beans from my garden, onions from the market, and mushrooms from Loveday. It was a huge success, and my husband has already requested that I make it this way from now on.
Veggies
Our veggies were corn from the market that I’d frozen earlier in the summer, and honey-glazed carrots. Both the carrots and the honey were from the market. (I used this super-simple recipe.)
Rolls and Cranberry sauce
The rolls were butterhorns from Mum’s Country Bakery in Landmark. (Incidentally, if you’ve never tried their cinnamon buns, you must!) I got both regular and multigrain, and they were both great.
The cranberry sauce… *sigh* Well, the cranberries were from Safeway. I was going to do a tart raspberry sauce using frozen raspberries from a friend’s garden this summer, but there was pouting and whining. In the interests of peace, I conceded on the sauce. My husband made a nice lemon-scented cranberry sauce with a touch of allspice.
Wine
Now, I could have gotten local wine. Manitoba has some very nice fruit wines that we could have used. But while we were back home visiting my family earlier this year, we picked up a bottle of Pink Catawba from Heineman’s Winery in Put-in-Bay, Ohio. It was a bit sweeter than I like, but everyone else seemed to like it.
Pumpkin Pie
I am blessed with a husband who makes the most amazing pumpkin pie. He starts with a sugar pumpkin, roasts it, purees it, makes the crust, and bakes them all together. Mmm.
So, that was our dinner! We have an obscene amount of leftovers (including 8lbs of turkey – we weighed it!), so tomorrow I think I’ll be making some turkey pot pies to freeze.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Winnipeg Eats 