tropit

Thanksgiving is such a traditional holiday. It's really hard to change it up. Not like Christmas, where anything goes, so long as you bake the cookies. I've tried over the years to introduce new things at Thanksgiving and I always get some push-back. "Nooooo....don't take off the marshmallows on the sweet potatoes!" "D's gotta have his green bean casserole!" It was a big deal just to get some people to eat cranberry sauce that didn't come out of a can. Hey guys, it is not 1961 anymore. Can't we please try some new things this year? My cook's brain is drained from making the same things year after year.

While my DH and I could care less about the turkey, I know better than to take that item off the menu. My angle now is to go for the sides....lots of sides...lots of healthy, veggie-based sides made from the beautiful harvest of our gardens. Bountiful dishes of squash, kale, cabbage, tomatoes, berries and other fruits and veggies. To the DH and I, that's what Thanksgiving is all about...being thankful for the wonderful harvest that nature provides for us every fall. I'm not excluding anything from the past, just adding to it. Who knows, maybe they'll like one, or two of the dishes and allow it on the menu next year.

Some of the extra things I'm doing this year are:

Noshes:
Carrot lox, w/almond cream cheese, capers and green onions
Kale Chips
Roasted Garbanzo Beans, spicy
Home-grown almonds, in shell
Fresh fruit bowl
stuffed mushrooms
chutney, all home-grown stuff (pineapple guava, poha berry, tomato, apple,) w/cheese plate
fresh cider (instead of booze...I hope. My family loves to drink. Too much, some might say.)
homemade french bread

Sides:
Fresh Tomato soup
Winter squash salad
Lemon Brussels Sprouts

The regular stuff will still be there:
Dressing
mashed potatoes
sweet potatoes with marshmallows just around the edges
cranberries (!)
Oyster casserole
green bean casserole (dau is doing that)
gravy
rolls
Pumpkin Pie (dau is doing that)
Ice Cream

Oh yeah...the Turkey too. (One family member asked just yesterday if I could do a ham as well, because his mom always did one when he was little. My answer was an emphatic NO!)

There's a ton of food...I know. The whole crew will be here for 5 days and I'm sure that there will be some more stragglers that show up. I'm cooking all of this stuff just once and it's leftovers for everyone the rest of the week.

~ C