Well Thanks For The Time I Needed To Think A Spell

I realize that Canadian Thanksgiving was a month ago and it's a bit ridiculous for me to post about it now but I loved my Thanksgiving dinner and it's almost American Thanksgiving so that's my excuse. I'm kind of debating celebrating American Thanksgiving just so I can have a full turkey dinner again.

My dinner consisted of (clockwise from the left) spicy green beans, sweet potato / turnip mash, roast carrots, turkey!, homemade cranberry sauce, and cowboy potatoes (which are actually called Jamie Oliver's Painted Hills Potatoes but I think cowboy potatoes sounds better.)

I don't have a large enough roasting pan to roast a turkey so I bought an aluminum one and threw celery, onions, lemons, apples, and fresh herbs in the base to keep the bird raised off the bottom. I seasoned the turkey with salt and pepper and filled the cavity with heads of garlic that I'd sliced horizontally through the cloves. I cooked my turkey upside down (because that's how Nigella does it) so it looked ugly but was moist and flavourful.

I was really happy with my side dishes. I was able to do a lot of prep ahead of time (I made the potatoes and the mash the day before and cooked them with the turkey) so when my kitchen sink clogged from the peelings of 20 carrots that I tried to send down the garbarator all at once and Shawn had to dismantle the pipe under the sink, it didn't throw my dinner off by too much.

Dessert was my grandma's pumpkin chiffon pie and chocolate mousse pie. Shawn had requested chocolate mousse and I was fully committed to making it until I realized that I didn't have any chocolate mousse vessels. The only thing I could think of using was wine glasses but then we wouldn't have anywhere to put the wine which I think we can all agree is a completely unacceptable situation. So I piled the mousse in a pie crust and called it mousse pie and everyone was happy.

My sisters both had other commitments but my mom, dad, and Westy came, along with Shawn's mom and brother. I made too much food, as usual, and I got quite shouty at Shawn when the sink was broken, but the evening was a success. Plus we had enough pie left over that I had pumpkin pie for breakfast for days afterwards so I was a very happy lady.