Thanksgiving Dinner 2019

I haven’t roasted a turkey in a few years, so I decided to do so for Thanksgiving this year. The past couple years, I’ve gone out for Thanksgiving dinner or bought smoked turkey breast from a BBQ joint in town. Since a lot of people seem to appreciate my food posts, I’m gonna share my menu with you here. And maybe some photos.

The Plan

Here’s what I’ve got planned for the menu for today. It’s an extremely small gathering, which is good because my dining room table only fits two.

• hummingbird cocktails – St. Germain, champagne, and club soda
• Mary’s free-range turkey, roasted the traditional way (though I did imagine sous-viding it at one point)
• Brussels sprouts with pepitas – I’m planning to do something that blends this recipe with this recipe
• rosemary turkey gravy – improvisational creation in the Instant Pot with turkey drippings, broth, fresh rosemary, Lebanese garlic paste, and pepper
• corn bread muffins – this is Brooke’s contribution, a family tradition of hers
• cranberry sauce – more on that in a second
• cherry pie from Project Angel Heart’s “Pie in the Sky” project
• special secret small dessert treat for people who don’t like cherry pie (in other words, Brooke)

About My Cranberry Sauce

OK, so let’s talk about cranberry sauce a bit. I often make a cranberry relish dish from fresh cranberries, ginger, apple, and sugar. It’s served uncooked and cool, and is tart and refreshing. I wrote up the recipe here a few years ago. Last year I made a huge batch of that to take to dinner at my cousin Megan’s house. But I had a lot of fresh cranberries left over that I didn’t use, so I froze them.

This year, about a week before Thanksgiving, I pulled those frozen cranberries out and thawed them. But I wasn’t convinced that they would make good relish since the freezing process made them a bit soft. So I decided to make cranberry sauce for the first time ever. And since I now have an Instant Pot, I just had to use that.

A couple days ago, I put those thawed cranberries into the Instant Pot, along with a little water, some sliced fresh ginger, an apple cut into segments, some cinnamon powder, a cinnamon stick, and some sugar. I pressure-cooked the whole thing for 3 minutes, and then let it sit for a while after that. Once the pressure was released enough to take off the lid, I fished out the non-cranberry chunks – the ginger, apple, and cinnamon stick. Then I stirred it all together, as it cooled.

I was surprised at how thick and gelatinous the sauce became once I started stirring. That’s normal, of course, but I’ve never made jam or preserves or anything like that, so it was new to me. Then it went into a container to cool and rest in the fridge until turkey day.

Cooking Photos

That brings us up to Thanksgiving day. I ended up spending several hours in the kitchen, even though the menu was pretty simple.

Both the turkey and the gravy took longer than I planned. I think I ran into problems with uneven temperature in my oven. And I could not get the flavor of the gravy just right.

I think my favorite parts of the whole meal were the cranberry sauce and the turkey. Now, lots of leftovers! I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.