Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2020

Posted on by
Reply

As with everything this year, Thanksgiving was a little different than usual. Instead of the usual 20+ guests crowd, we had 11 people total, 9 adults. Everyone had tested negative before they arrived. (The new prerequisite: don’t bring a side dish or flowers—bring a negative test result.)
Cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 11 is barely cooking Thanksgiving dinner at all. It was a surprisingly unstressful experience. We actually ran out of things to do at around 4:00 pm that day.
Our Thanksgiving menu is as follows:

Thanksgiving 2020 menu
Thanksgiving 2020 spread

Whatever the constraints, it is still a holiday that celebrates thankfulness and gratitude. We are indeed fortunate in our lives, and in this year of all years, we feel grateful for our many blessings.

Thanksgiving 2020

Posted on by
Reply

Relief is probably the thought uppermost in most people’s minds–relief that this year is finally drawing to a close. Relief and hope that 2021 will be an improvement. Thanksgiving for our family is always an opportunity to remember our many blessings (and to eat lots of food). We feel fortunate that our extended families are healthy <knock on wood!> and that we are weathering the shocks cheerfully and with resilience (mostly).

Thanksgiving was a quiet one for us this year, but that did not mean the meal was going to suffer in any way. Here is our menu for the evening:

With a menu like that, prep sheets are necessary:

The meal turned out well. The smoked turkey looked especially beautiful this year:

The deep-fried turkey is generally the most popular to eat:

The velociraptor (aka the son) is always a fan of the gougères:

And the spread looked impressive, even for a small group.

No Thanksgiving is complete without dessert. We went with our traditional desserts this year. A chocolate-pumpkin cheesecake, representing the traditional pumpkin requirement:

An apple pie

And a blackberry pie (the blackberries are from Lewis County, Washington)

We hope your Thanksgiving was equally festive (in a pandemic, surreal kind of way). Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2018

Posted on by
Reply

We love Thanksgiving. In particular, we love hosting Thanksgiving—the more, the merrier (especially for the extroverts in the family). This year, we sat 32 people for dinner, including several new attendees! (It’s always lovely to discover new orphans to welcome to Thanksgiving as well as welcoming back returning orphans.)

Here is the complete Thanksgiving menu for this year:

Thai pumpkin soup (served with gougères)
Smoked organic turkey
Roasted organic turkey
Confit organic turkey legs
Stock-braised organic turkey legs
Deep fried organic turkey
Sous vide turkey breast with chipotle honey
Sous vide turkey breast with sage & rosemary
Roasted pork shoulder
Roast duck (from Mark’s Duck House)
Roasted beets with chimichurri sauce
Brussel sprouts with mustard and brown sugar sauce
Chickpea, arugula, and picked carrot salad
Sweet potato and star fruit chaat
Mom’s stuffing (from the Lintott side of the family)
Jamaican rice stuffing
Country ham stuffing
Smashed potatoes
Orange-cranberry sauce
Lemon-pomegranate cranberry sauce
Kimchi
Rice
Gravy
Dinner rolls
Chocolate-pumpkin cheesecake
Wild blackberry pie (berries from Washington state)
Apple pie
Sponge cake with cranberry curd
Cranberry orange shortbread
Divinity and nut brittle

smoked turkey

roasted turkey

deep fried turkey

the spread from one end

the spread (from the other end)

We hope everyone who came enjoyed the festivities, and we further hope that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2017

Posted on by
Reply

We sat 41 people for dinner for Thanksgiving this year. Well, technically, 37 adults (if you include one 16 year old velociraptor) and 4 kids under 10.

The menu was as follows:
Thai pumpkin soup with gougeres
Smoked turkey
Roasted turkey with confit legs
Stock-braised turkey legs
Deep fried turkey
Roasted pork shoulder
Roast duck
Roasted beets with chimichurri sauce
Skillet roasted Brussel sprouts with mustard and brown sugar
Chickpea, arugula, and picked carrot salad
Sweet potato and star fruit chaat
Mom’s stuffing (that’s Jim’s mom, obviously)
Mashed potatoes
Orange cranberry sauce
Kimchi
Rice
Gravy
Hawaiian dinner rolls
Chocolate pumpkin cheesecake
Blackberry pie
Apple pie
Pumpkin spice cake

If there is a term for exhausted and stuffed at the end of a meal (stuffausted? exuffed?), that’s what we were. Thankfully, Jim’s nephew, Robert, came to help cook, and Robert’s girlfriend, Victoria, made the pumpkin spice cakes. (We had two of each dessert.)
And since Thanksgiving is all about thankfulness, I would like to say that we are extraordinarily thankful for our family and friends, who celebrate with us in good times and sustain us in bad times.
We hope your Thanksgiving was equally festive!

Thai pumpkin soup

traditional day-after-Thanksgiving sticky buns

 

 

Thanksgiving 2016

Posted on by
Reply

We sat 26 people down for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.  Some family but also friends.  Our menu was as follows:
Thai pumpkin soup
Smoked organic turkey
Roasted organic turkey with confit legs
Fried organic turkey
Roasted shrimp with rosemary
Roast duck
Stuffing
Chili-bathed sweet potatoes
Dinner rolls
Rice
Kimchi
Gravy
Orange cranberry sauce
Roasted carrots with creamy nuoc chom sauce
Mashed poatoes
Hashed Brussel sprouts with lemon
Chocolate pumpkin cheesecake
Blackberry pie
Apple pie

The spread was quite impressive (since boiling water is a culinary highlight for me, I can say that).  🙂

img_3612img_3613

Thanksgiving spread

Thanksgiving spread

apple pie

apple pie

blackberry pie

blackberry pie

chocolate pumpkin cheesecake

chocolate pumpkin cheesecake

We also had the traditional day-after-Thanksgiving breakfast of homemade sticky buns.

img_3616

Most importantly for us on Thanksgiving, however, is to be grateful for life’s blessings.  And so we give thanks for our good health and the family and friends in our lives.  We hope your Thanksgiving was as full of gratitude as ours!

turkey massacre 2016

turkey massacre 2016

Thanksgiving 2015

Posted on by
1

We sat 31 people to dinner for Thanksgiving this year, which is rather a lot for us and a tremendous amount of fun (and a teeny weeny amount of stress). Thank goodness for Robert, Jim’s nephew, who came early and helped tremendously with the cooking. Together, we managed to feed everyone the following menu:

Thai pumpkin soup

Thai pumpkin soup

Thai pumpkin soup

Smoked organic turkey

smoked turkey

smoked turkey

Roasted organic turkey

roasted turkey

roasted turkey

Deep fried organic turkey

fried turkey

fried turkey

Honeybaked ham

Roasted shrimp with rosemary

Roast ducks (from Mark’s Duck House)

Stuffing (vegetarian and non-vegetarian)

stuffing & mashed potatoes

stuffing & mashed potatoes

Chili-bathed sweet potatoes

Dinner rolls

IMG_3045

dinner rolls

Rice

Kimchi

Gravy

Orange cranberry sauce

Red wine cranberry sauce

red wine cranberry sauce

red wine cranberry sauce

Roasted carrots

Mashed potatoes

Hashed Brussel sprouts with lemon

brussel sprouts

brussel sprouts

Chocolate pumpkin cheesecake

chocolate pumpkin cheesecake

chocolate pumpkin cheesecake

Blackberry pie

blackberry pie

blackberry pie

Apple pie

apple pie

apple pie

the spread, part 1

the spread, part 1

the spread, part 2

the spread, part 2

And the obligatory day-after-Thanksgiving sticky buns, of course…

sticky buns

sticky buns

the lone remaining sticky bun

the lone remaining sticky bun

As we do every Thanksgiving, we each express what we are thankful for this year. And so this year, I am incredibly thankful for our family and friends and their continued good health. I am especially thankful for Jim and the kids for making me happier and more blessed than I could have possibly imagined.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2014

Posted on by
1

It was a festive Thanksgiving holiday for us. To begin with, it was the first Thanksgiving experience for Yinan, our exchange student. I don’t know if she was amused or appalled by the amount of food served, but she discovered that she loves mashed potatoes (or, as she calls them, “smashed potatoes”).

We had 25 people in total for dinner. We could not have pulled out the dinner without Yinan’s help and the help of Jim’s nephew, Robert.

This was our Thanksgiving menu:

Thai pumpkin soup

Smoked organic free range turkey

smoked turkey

smoked turkey

Roasted organic heritage turkey

roasted turkey

roasted turkey

Fried organic free range turkey

deep fried turkey

deep fried turkey

Honey-baked ham

Roast duck (from Mark’s Duck House)

Roasted shrimp with rosemary

Stuffing

Sweet potatoes

Dinner rolls

Rice

Kimchi (no Thanksgiving dinner is complete without it!)

Gravy

Orange cranberry sauce

Roasted carrots

Mashed potatoes

Brussel sprouts with bacon

Chocolate pumpkin cheesecake

chocolate pumpkin cheesecake

chocolate pumpkin cheesecake

Blackberry pie

blackberry pie

blackberry pie

Apple pie

apple pie

apple pie

I haven’t yet figured out whether we have this many people over for Thanksgiving so that Jim can cook 3 turkeys or whether Jim cooks 3 turkeys so that we can have this many people over.

Hope everyone had as fun a Thanksgiving holiday as we did!

Thanksgiving

Posted on by
1

We sat 25 people down for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.  The extroverted half of the family was giddy with excitement.  The introverted half of the family was delighted at the crowd and equally delighted when the evening ended.

Here’s the menu of what was served:

Thai Pumpkin Soup

Fried Turkey

Smoked Turkey

Roasted Turkey

Ham

Roasted Shrimp

Stuffing

Sweet Potatoes

Dinner Rolls

Rice

Gravy

Orange-Cranberry Sauce

Roasted Carrots

Mashed Potatoes

Acorn Squash

Lentil Quinoa Salad

Brussel Sprouts with Bacon

Tossed Salad

Kimchi

Chocolate-Pumpkin Cheesecake

Blackberry Pie

Apple Pie

Blueberry Pie

We had a lot of leftovers.  🙂

We have a Thanksgiving tradition where each family member says what they are thankful for.  I am thankful for my family and friends and the blessings of good health that we enjoy.  As we often say in our family, we have inconveniences, not problems.  (This stems from a story from a friend of ours who attended a dinner party where people were complaining about various things.  Then, one elderly woman announced, “I don’t have problems.”  She rolled up her sleeve to reveal a tattooed number on her forearm and said, “When I got this, I had problems.  Now, I only have inconveniences.”)

I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season, filled with only inconveniences!