Thanksgiving "Instant Replay"

Today is all leftovers, except for the corn that was forgotten in the oven. So I thought I’d write a little about how I assembled the dinner menu. The recipes came from many different sources. The first recipe for the Crab and artichoke dip came from Sunset Magazine. The pesto stuffed mushroom caps came from Viansa and couldn’t have been easier. I bought large white mushrooms and took out the stems. I cleaned 12 of them and filled the centers with 1 jar of Basil pesto from the store. I baked them for 20 minutes at 400 degrees and sprinkled each with finely grated Parmesan cheese. I left them in the oven for the cheese to melt a few minutes. These were a great hit. The goat cheese idea also came from Viansa also. Open up the package of goat cheese and place on a plate. Pour the honey on top and top that with roasted very thin sliced almonds with the brown edges. I served it all with thin French bread slices that had been toasted with EVOO that I bought from Wegmans.
I always wet brine my turkeys. I usually just buy the brine from Williams Sonoma. Jim always cooks the turkey in the grille. This year after drying it I rubbed the skin with a mixture of butter, Herbes De Provence, salt, pepper and EVOO. This recipe came from Penzeys catalogue. The turkey was moist and delicious. Jim kept basting it with chicken broth. He cooked a 20# turkey in 3 hours. I made the gravy with Wonder Flour, pan drippings which were not greasy as we used mostly chicken broth for basting. I supplemented it with the turkey broth I had made the day before. The stuffing came from Sunset Magazine and was the best I have ever made. The whipped Sweet potatoes and bananas with honey came from FoodTV chief Tyler Florence and the year was 2006. I still like the kind with marshmallows on top better. The roasted Brussels sprouts with wild mushrooms came from Fine Cooking Magazine. These were a huge hit and super easy.
Sweet bourbon corn pudding came from an article in Parade Magazine. The green beans were just coated with the EVOO, salt and pepper and cooked in the microwave. I sort of added them for color. The pan-roasted balsamic onions came from Martha’s TV show in 2007. I was really looking forward to this and they were good, but I’ve made better with less nonsense. The Cranberry Pomegranate Terrine also came from Food TV, 2008. I have enough left over to feed an army.

Finally dessert. I got so much grief from Jim for making two pies. “I’m not going to stuff myself,” said the man who had two helpings of everything at dinner and ate a piece of each pie with whipped cream. The first was an apple and blackberry combination. It is the picture on the left. The fall leaves are the millions of little leaves cut from pastry covering the apples as only Martha could dream up. The pumpkin pie was the best ever and came from a Sharon Klein of Milwaukie, OR, published by Sunset Magazine. This one was very easy and I decorated it with 2 sizes of leaves, an acorn and a pumpkin.
With appetizers Jim served Domaine Dublere, Chassagne-Montrachet, 1er Cru – Les Chaumees, 2006. If I ever win the lottery, I am going to fill the wine cellar with this wine. For dinner we had Reillys, 2007 old bush vine Grenache, just wonderful. I was extremely pleased with the taste of dinner and that the timing I planned worked perfectly.