Though Football Sundays are not as couch packed as they use to be, our holiday dinners never cease to draw the usual crowd.  Not city limits nor working hours can stop our friends from showing up to our holiday feasts.

With time not on our side and coasts dividing us [Mike was in Vancouver the week before the holiday], Mike and I jumped into Thanksgiving planning as best we could with full intentions of upholding traditions we set in past years. However, we came up short.

With time constraints, there were no Mike + Madelaine photographed and printed Thanksgiving invites that went out; Mike + co still manned the cooking but we didn’t host the dinner at our place; dinner was held on a Saturday to allow for an disturbed + relaxing Football Sunday; and our turkey was solely a turkey – not a turducken or a turporken.  This year, we went the way of a more “traditional” fare; a seemingly less complicated approach [yet continued to take all day] but still a twist on our version of traditional.

With Mike sporting his festive Cowboys “ugly sweater”,  bags of groceries, arms full of wine, and a 20lb brined turkey we arrived at Shereen’s.  As we unpacked, her kitchen and dining room counters were quickly over taken.  The guys were in charge of the turkey + sides, Shereen was on appetizer duty, and I was in charge of pumpkin macarons [a tradition that I wasn’t planning on bringing back but was aggressively told that I HAD to].

P U M P K I N  M A C A R O N S

MACARON SHELLS

for cookie recipe click here
**add copper or orange gel food colour to the meringue during the whipping process until you achieve your desired shade
**sprinkle cinnamon atop the piped batter circles before they are left to dry on the baking sheets

PUMPKIN GANACHE

• 8oz white chocolate | chopped
• 3tbs heavy cream
• 2tbs brown sugar
• 1/2c canned pumpkin purée
• 1 1/2tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • makes 8tbs | combine 4tbs ground cinnamon + 4tsp ground nutmeg + 4tsp ground ginger + 3tsp ground all spice

melt chocolate in a double boiler
combine cream + brown sugar + pumpkin purée + pumpkin pie spice in a small sauce pan  and place over med-low heat | bring to a simmer
add cream mix to chocolate + fold to combine
pour into shallow dish + cool + place plastic wrap directly on ganache surface | refrigerate until thickened + cold
after removing from fridge let stand in from temp for 10 mins
whip mixture with whisk attachment until light + fluffy
pipe filling onto macaron cookies

[To achieve a smokey char flavour, pre oven, Mike BBQ’d the turkey…doesn’t everyone?].

[right before the oven]

S T U F F I N G
serves 6

• 1 loaf of bread | cubed
• 1 carrot | peeled + diced
• 1 onion | peeled + diced
• 2 stalks celery | diced
• 4 clove garlic | minced
• 2tbs chopped sage
• 2tbs chopped parsley
• 2tbs chopped rosemary
• 2tbs chopped thyme
• 1c chicken fat
• 2c chicken stock
• zest of 1 orange
• 1/2lb fried + chopped bacon
• Salt + Pepper to taste

place all ingredients in a roasting pan
mix
roast @ 400ºF turning every 20 minutes until bread is fluffy + toasted | about 90mins

[the results of a regular garlic butter bath every 20 mins]

B E E T + G O A T  C H E E S E  S A L A D

• 8 beets | roasted, peeled + quartered
• 4tbs sherry vinegar
• 2tbs shallots | dice
• 1/2c goat cheese
• 1/4c pickled shallots
• 1c blanched peas
• 1/2c toasted pumpkin seeds
• zest of 1 orange
• salt + pepper

Mix beets + vinegar + shallots in a bowl and let sit for 2 hours
before serving, mix in crumbled goat cheese + pickled shallots + pumpkin seeds + peas
finish off with orange zest and salt + pepper to taste

Food traditions aside, spending the day together with friends cooking, the early evening stuffing our faces, and the late evening questioning why we ate as much as we did were the true traditions that I am thankful we kept.

Happy Thanksgiving fellow Canadians!  Hope your Thanksgiving weekend was a delicious one!