Thanksgiving 2009

Had Uly's family over plus my folks for Thanksgiving dinner. This was our second time hosting thanksgiving, the first time being 2 years ago. I gotta say it's a lot of work, but it's really nice to have the family over for a nice sit-down meal. We pretty much spend 2 days cooking, and the day after cleaning up, but it was soooo worth it!


The turkey - got a fresh Diestel turkey from Whole Foods. It was really good, but somehow not as good as the first time we made it, even though we made it exactly the same way from the Cook's Illustrated cookbook, brining and all. I think we used an organic turkey last time? Could it have made that big a difference? It was still good though!


Stuffing with bacon, apple, and caramelized onions - Same recipe as before also. I think I put a little too much stock so it was a bit mushy, but it was even better the next day when it got a chance to dry out when I reheated it though.


Garlic mashed potatoes & gravy - Potatoes were nice and fluffy, and turned out better than last time since we didn't put as much cream. After spending a couple days boiling the giblets and reducing the stock several times to make the gravy last time, I went the lazy way out and bought some fresh turkey gravy from Whole Foods. All I did was add some of the drippings from the turkey and you know what? It was just as good. Totally not worth it to make my own gravy, will go the premade route from now on.


Homemade cranberry sauce - unlike the gravy, this one only took around 5 minutes to boil the sugar syrup and add the fresh cranberries. And unlike the gravy, this was totally worth it. I'm never going back to the canned stuff. Even better when used for leftover turkey sandwiches!


Green bean casserole - Last Thanksgiving, Leah made this and it was so great that I begged her for the recipe...and she said, "I just use the one from the French's can!" I was somewhat tempted to use the more complicated recipes from Cook's Illustrated and Alton Brown, but then I just gave up and use the one from the can that used Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, French's fried onions, and frozen green beans...and it turned out great! Probably one of the most popular vegetable sides I've ever served (must be the fried onion rings on top...).


Beef Bourguignon - Uly wanted to make this as a "second entree" to make it as substitute for people who don't wanna eat turkey (Seriously, who doesn't wanna eat turkey on Thanksgiving?). But it wound up being really tasty and popular. Looks like we'll be making this recipe again sometime...



Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake - I made a couple of these cheesescakes last year to bring to Uly's family and my aunt's potluck. Still great, and such a nice seasonal dessert! It's all about the gingersnap crust (and of course the extra bourbon I poured in)!

We drank the following with dinner (and after):
Gloria Ferrer Royal Cuvee - Just some bubbly as a nice aperatif before we start eating
Ridge Geyserville 2007 - This was one of the Chronicle's picks as a wine to go with the Thanksgiving meal, and I gotta say, I agree with this pick. An excellent wine, as all Ridge wines are.
Perrin et Fils Gigondas 2006 - Our other choice to go with the meal. Figure we'll mix it up with a French wine, and these Rhone wines do seem to go really well with poultry
Germain-Robin XO Brandy - Had this as a digestif after dinner. Since trying this at Michael Mina I've been wanting to get this for a while. I'm not a big Brandy/Cognac person like Uly but I just love the smell of this one (smells like stronger port) and the slight sweetness that it has (that again, reminds me of port). Good stuff.

Well, that's Thanksgiving 2009. I'm not sure we'll host it every year, since it's so much work, but definitely worth doing this once in a while.