Meal No. 863: Thanksgiving 2013

Hello, my most favorite of all holidays. Thanksgiving 2013 has come and gone, and I hate like heck that it had to be over so darned fast. What could possibly please me more than getting to spend lots and lots of time in my kitchen and celebrating togetherness with a great crew of friends and Roediger House regulars?

Last night's meal was another feast, with no reduction in the quantity in spite of the fact that it was a relatively smaller gathering: only six around the dinner table. But an awesome six it was!

The menu is my standard one, for the most part:

Beef Tenderloin in Wine Sauce

The Wine Sauce (not everybody likes onions and/or mushrooms!)

Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast
(which I butchered because I can't carve worth a lick!)

Layered Green Bean Casserole

Corn Pudding

Slow-Cooker Sweet Potato Casserole

I might be getting over my disinclinations regarding gravy: I did make some but rushed it onto the counter for the buffet-style serving without snapping a picture of it. Which is especially unfortunate given how nice it looked in the gravy boat that came in the set of my mother's china.

We bellied up to the bar and loaded our plates and seconds and thirds were had. I didn't grab my camera quickly enough but even Cyprus fell in at the end of the line for the food. (People food is forbidden to her, though!)

Clockwise from Center Left:
corn pudding, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole,
apple & bacon stuffing, turkey with gravy,
beef tenderloin with wine sauce and horseradish cream sauce.

Finally, I broke with tradition and incorporated a new and untested and untried dish in this very set holiday menu: cornbread stuffing with apples and bacon. It was a certifiable hit with the crowd and got rave reviews!

The twist on this new dish is its source: David Venable, known for In the Kitchen with David on the QVC network. (David's cookbook was Number 3 in cookbook sales in 2012, according to Publisher's Weekly.) And he has the added distinction of being a classmate from Carolina, where we became good friends through our respective leadership roles: he as president of the Senior Class, and me as president of the Residence Hall Association. Here's a fun photo from back in the day:

David's the one towering over the rest of us. Guess that's still true today!

Finally, one more thing: some of you know my joy at catching sight of the local hawk. Working at the kitchen sink yesterday afternoon, I chanced to spy him watching and alert, perched on the top of the chain link fence behind the house. This was the pic I snapped before he jetted off:

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"Oven-Roasted Turkey Breast," Betty Crocker: Holiday Entrées, Sides, Brunches, & More, November 2001, p. 22-23.

"Beef Tenderloin in Wine Sauce" (p. 296) and "Spicy Horseradish Sauce" (p. 295), from The All-New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. Compiled and Edited by Julie Fisher Gunter. Oxmoor Press (2006).

"Layered Green Bean Casserole," from my sister Allison in Rossville, Indiana.

"Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecan Topping," from Southern Living Slow-Cooker Cookbook,  (Oxmoor House, 2006), p. 234-235.

"Cornbread Stuffing with Apples and Bacon," from David Venable. Found online.