I'm not American. Neither is my other half. I have been fascinated by the whole Thanksgiving dinner for years though, and I love love love cooking so I decided to give it a go this year, purely to test my cooking skills. I have to admit that some of the 'sides' that go with the Turkey are just too sweet for my liking (sweet potato and marshmallows anybody?!) so I chose the most palatable combinations for me and set-to cooking a thanksgiving feast!
I made pumpkin pie! I added the marshmallows because my friend told me that when she made one it wasn't sweet enough for her liking, especially when so many other parts of the meal were so sweet!
I cooked my first ever turkey, and I am sorry for bad mouthing it for so long! I cook with minced turkey all the time, but we have never had a turkey at Christmas because we all agree that Chicken is much nicer.... I still think chicken is nicer, but after my (frozen £10 from lidl) turkey had had it's Nigella spiced brine bath, it really did taste fantastic. So much meat too, some is in the freezer, a ton is in our bellies and another ton is about to go in the pie I'm soon to make. Coca cola ham (just cause!) and I added Mac and cheese because I've got my recipe down to a fine art now, and it's so good reheated (and freezes well too!). I wanted to make a green bean casserole but sadly bought everything I needed to make it except for the actual green beans! Oh well, I just chucked the mushrooms into the stuffing (or dressing as some Americans call it!) which is like a meat-free bread-full stuffing made with pretty much whatever you fancy plus some stock. Good for vegetarians I think... it's like savoury bread and butter pudding! I even made giblet stock for the gravy, and then stock for the pie and to freeze from the turkey bones! Never bothered with stock before, it was fun!
I'm not sure if it is because this was my first time cooking a thanksgiving-type meal, or if it really is just like this, but it was so much more complicated than Christmas dinner. So many of the side dishes that are traditionally served are basically main meals in themselves, so each one takes forever to prepare, and I only did a tiny version! Plus as yummy as the turkey was, I sort of think that Chicken or duck doesn't need so much intervention to make it juicy and tasty, so I might just stick to that unless there are loads of people to feed. I'm doing Goose this year and don't plan to do anything more than rub some allspice butter on prior to roasting. I guess it seems easier to do British roast sides because so many of them can just be chucked in to cook with the meat?! Dunno, either way it was really fun to try this out! Belated happy thanksgiving to my American readers, I bet your meals were much more extensive than mine!
Being highly intelligent creatures we decided to wait until I had put all the food on the table to take outfit pictures so I was a bit on the hot and flustered side!
Bolero - H&M via ebay (I'll show you this properly one day, especially the back which is glorious!)
Dress - Crazy clearance
Leggings & Christmas socks (totally go with the outfit don't you think?!) - Primark
I want to come for dinner at yours
ReplyDeleteLooks like you did a lovely job of it. I do not believe I have ever seen a pie done like that with the marshmallows. We call it stuffing in the south I think maybe in the north they call it dressing no idea. I think sides vary depending on family because my mom's side does a lot of sweets but my dad's usually only do savory sides and save the sweetness for the desserts.
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