Thanksgiving Menu and Recipe Ideas

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is refreshed for the week ahead. I probably should have done this before Thanksgiving, but I thought I would still share this year’s menu with you, with links to the recipes. You can always bookmark it for next year, use some for your Christmas menu, or there are a few dishes listed at the bottom that I think are fantastic at any time. 

Appetizers

Cheese and Vegetable Platter

Shrimp Cocktail

Stuffed Portabella Mushroom

Bacon-wrapped Scallops

Breads

Pumpkin Gingerbread

Hickory-Bacon and Roasted-Corn Gougeres

 

Salad and Vegetables

Red Leaf and Apple Salad with Dried Cranberries and Walnuts

Green Beans and Walnuts with Lemon Vinaigrette

 

Mains

Herb Turkey with Lemon-Garlic Gravy

Venison with Roasted Vegetables

Bacon, Apple, and Fennel Stuffing

Cranberry Sauce with Port and Tangerine

 

Root Vegetables

Sauteed Parsnips and Carrots with Honey and Rosemary

Crispy Potato Roast

Sweet Potato Pudding with Pecan and Gingersnap Topping

 

Desserts

A choice of Cranberry Tart or Apple, Blueberry, or Pumpkin Pie

The following dishes were particularly easy and wonderful. Thank you to Epicurious and Bon Appetit! 

Sauteed Parsnips and Carrots with Honey and Rosemary

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 pound carrots (about 4 large), peeled, cut into 3x1/4x1/4-inch sticks

1 pound large parsnips, peeled, halved lengthwise, cored, cut into 3x1/4x1/4-inch sticks

Coarse kosher salt

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

1 1/2 tablespoons honey (such as heather, chestnut, or wildflower)

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add carrots and parsnips. Sprinkle with coarse kosher salt and pepper. Sauté until vegetables are beginning to brown at edges, about 12 minutes. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.

Add butter, rosemary, and honey to vegetables. Toss over medium heat until heated through and vegetables are glazed, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with more salt and pepper, if desired.

Green Beans and Walnuts with Lemon Vinaigrette

Ingredients

• 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup walnut oil or olive oil
• 2 tablespoons minced shallot
• 1 1/2 pounds green beans, trimmed
• 2/3 cup walnuts, toasted, coarsely chopped
• 
  

Preparation

• Remove peel from lemon with vegetable peeler and cut into very fine strips. Cut lemon in half. Squeeze enough juice to measure 2 tablespoons; transfer to small bowl. Whisk in mustard, then oil and shallot. Season with salt and pepper.
• Cook green beans in pot of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, 5 to 6 minutes. Drain; pat dry.
• Combine beans, walnuts, and lemon peel strands in large bowl. Add dressing; toss to coat. Season salad to taste with salt and pepper and serve.
  
  
  
  

If you end up trying these dishes or any of the ones on the menu, let me know how they turned out :) 

A Whole Lotta Love,

Adrienne

Thanksgiving Day Inspirations

I know that Halloween has just come and gone and already the Christmas lights and music are starting to fill our shopping arenas, but the holiday I'm most excited about right now is Thanksgiving! Although I love Christmas season, there is something about Thanksgiving that makes it my favorite holiday. I think its because its not so commercial. There's no pressure to find gifts or write cards or do any of the things that can make the Christmas season sometimes more stressful (although I am personally very low key about all those things). Thanksgiving is just about good food, good friends and family, and being thankful (and perhaps a food coma nap or football game thrown in there). 

It is so important to be thankful, isn't it? I think the degree of the thankfulness in our lives really determines how we view the quality of our lives. We can truly choose to see the good things in life and then I think good things tend to come to you. I don't know if you've seen it, but I have another little blog called Life's Simple Joys, where I just write one thing I'm thankful for whenever I get the chance. Since doing this, I've found that there are literally millions of things to be thankful for. 

Of course, there are times when I get in a funk too, as well all do. I was actually in one the other day for no apparent reason. Then I decided to listen to the Power of Positive Thinking audio book on Youtube. I know its a very popular book, but I had never read it before. The whole thing is free to listen to if you can stand the really annoying computer-generated voice and cheesy background music. Anyway, he really stresses the importance of thankfulness in our lives and obviously the power of positive thinking (aka faith) and prayer in our lives. After just listening it to it for a short time, my attitude was completely turned around and life was beautiful again. The world around me hadn't physically changed in any way, but my perspective on it was changed... and that made all the difference. 

So back to Thanksgiving Day itself, one think I love is to plan a nice table. This is the first year that Thanksgiving will be at my house and where I am planning the menu. Last year I had two Thanksgiving meals.. one at my parents and then we also had one with friends at our house where we hosted, but the meal was pretty much prepared by our friends. I did snap a few pics of the table, but it for some reason it was both  before everything was totally set and after we had finished eating. One thing that I did that was fun was to print out the menu, put it in a frame and hung it on the wall:

The other day I started collecting some inspiration images of both decor and recipes on Pinterest, which I really like for organizing my thoughts, especially as I'm a pretty visual person. You can check them all out there, but here are some of my favorite decor inspirations for this year:

source

source

source

source

And here's a snapshot of my Pinterest board

Hope you find these images inspiring as well. And if you have any other great ones to share, send me the link :) And speaking of thanks, I want to express my gratitude and appreciation to all the wonderful bloggers that I've 'met' this year and to those who make the blogging world a beautiful place.

A Whole Lotta Love,

Adrienne