Well due to the scattering of family and friends all over on Thanksgiving,
we decided to have the big bird dinner yesterday instead so that we could
enjoy it with said family and friends. All in all, it was a delightful day
and a wonderful meal! I have to say, I do wish I'd have gotten one more
breast so there would have been more leftovers! All told, including kids and
myself, there were 15 people. Here's what was on the menu:
Spinach onion dip in a bread bowl
Pate with green onions and olives
Assorted crudités and dip
Assorted crackers and cheeses
Assorted olives

Roast Turkey with sage butter
Sage Dressing
Rich Turkey gravy
Smashed Taters
Trader Joe's Cranberry sauce (a favorite of ours!)
Asparagus with rosemary and pine nuts
Cream & Sugar sweet corn (from my Aunt Margaret)
Assorted sparkling juices: Cranberry, French Berry Lemonade, Sicilian
Orange, Blood Orange, Wildberry, and Raspberry.
Hot Cinnamon Sunset tea

Pies: Pumpkin, Chocolate Cream, Lattice-Top Cherry, and Black Bottom Coconut
Cream. Also, there was a dessert my friend brought that had a pecan based
crust, a cream cheese layer, a vanilla custard layer and a chocolate custard
layer, topped with whipped cream and shaved chocolate. Her family calls it
custard pie.

Coffee: Blue Mountain, Peppermint, and Chocolate Velvet
Peppermint Cocoa

I have a small-ish 50 yr old Thermador oven, so there was no way to do both
a Turkey (16.5lb) and the additional breast so I borrowed my mom's roaster.
I made my grandma's sage butter and slipped it under the skin, then all over
the surface of the skin too. I roasted the whole bird unstuffed and put the
dressing and the breast in the roaster. Wow, it was moist! And I daresay it
was the best dressing I ever made.
I found a blood orange avocado oil that I sautéed the asparagus in along
with rosemary and pine nuts.
The day before, I baked the pies (well just the crust for the chocolate and
coconut cream) and made stock from roasted turkey wings & necks (along with
onions, celery, shallots, a couple carrots, and peppercorns, made the
toasted coconut ganache for the black bottom part of the coconut cream pie,
and made the pate. Wednesday night my mom and I made dough for wheat
rolls,white rolls, cloverleaf rolls, and crescent rolls, so I baked those
the day before too. That freed up the oven yesterday and all I had to do was
make the dressing, prepare the bird and breast, and make the sides, which
meant I was able to spend more time with my guests...which was really nice.

I hope, however you spent the last couple days, you enjoyed life.

kimberly