Feast Menu

Lauren and I avoided the Thanksgiving travel nightmare this year and stayed out in California. We cooked a real Thanksgiving feast and I have to say it turned out pretty damn well. The centerpiece was a boneless turkey breast and stuffing recipe that we got from my subscription to Cuisine At Home magazine. This involved deboning the turkey breast myself which was interesting and not as difficult as I had feared. The stuffing was white and cornbread, with bacon, onions, cranberries, spices, and a whole pureed orange, peel and all. Stuffing goes in a baking dish, turkey breast covers it up, bake for 90 minutes, slice, done. You stuff sage leaves under the turkey skin so when you slice it there's this nice visual (and taste) effect from that. Beyond that we made gravy from the results of the deboning which turned out fantastic, redskin mashed potatoes, carrots, and cranberry sauce. Lauren baked a pumpkin pie.

It was also a good excuse to use a lot of wedding items, from some new knives to a rolling pin to the good china gravy boat. Definitely a lot of work, even with about half of it done the night before. I think if we do it again next year we will maybe try something simpler like a spiral baked ham. But in any event it turned out really well and we have a ton of leftovers which I love.