Thanksgiving 2010 Recap

I thought we were going to have to cancel Thanksgiving because of how awful I felt yesterday. But JD helped prep everything, we scaled back the menu a bit, and made a few things in advance, so we were able to have a delicious meal.

I made an Unturkey-esque roast. Rice pilaf stuffed inside seitan, then wrapped in yuba. This was really easy to prep before hand, and we actually made the seitan entirely the night before and let it cook all night long and and I soaked the long grain brown and wild rice overnight.

JD made the pie crusts, and we had Kentucky Bourbon (chocolate walnut) pie, and sweet potato pie. I love these pies so much! I wanted to make an ebook of pie recipes, including these, for the holidays but Vegan MoFo kicked my ass. These pies were made entirely in advance. The sweet potato pie filling had actually been made months in advance and frozen in an airtight container, then it was thawed overnight in the fridge and poured into a prepare pie crust and baked.

I've been having daydreams of potato gratin for the past week. I don't know what sparked this because I only remember having this dish once in my life, and it was a really awful version, with dehydrated potatoes. But for some reason, I kept imagining tender, creamy potatoes in a thick, luscious sauce, and how warm and comforting they would be fresh from the oven. Since we were having mashed potatoes, I decided to try making a sweet potato gratin.

Holy, holy! It was amazing. The sauce was super creamy, buttery, and extremely luscious. The sweet potatoes melted in your mouth. I will definitely be adding this to my rotation. I would change a few things, such as making thicker layers, and making the sauce a little bit thinner, but it was fantastic.

We also had walnut, cranberry and fig cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, vanilla cranberry sauce, sparkling/sugared cranberries, creamed greens, and extra rice pilaf with pecans.

Most importantly of all, if was a good day with good company. And now I'm going back to bed.