What a wonderful Thanksgiving it was this year. In fact, it was probably the best Thanksgiving I’ve had in recent memory, and I’m pretty sure it was because of two orthodox details that happened to be missing this time around. First, it was all vegetarian and thus no turkey, second, the dinner was spent with friends rather than family. I can’t thank our wonderful hosts enough, who were so gracious and made terrific food, and also the lovely friend who invited us.
Although I’ve had some fantastic post-Thanksgiving dinners with friends, turkey, and all the fixings, I’m usually obliged to spend Thanksgiving Day itself with family. However, as my family is quite small, it seems a bit overkill to go into a cooking frenzy (especially since I’m the only one who likes to cook), so we go out to eat, which to me seems most un-Thanksgivingy. And let me tell you, even supposedly reputable restaurants can serve a pretty horrible interpretation of Thanksgiving dinner. Needless to say, I was tickled pink to have another option this year (which involved some careful strategizing to please the family, mind).
First things first: vegetarian Thanksgiving isn’t all about Tofurkey, believe it or not. There was nary a meat substitute in sight; instead, everyone contributed to an amazing array of dishes, which spanned the unconventional (hominy stew, nut loaf, homemade samosas, roasted beets and red carrots) to the deliciously traditional (stuffing, mashed potatoes, and a shocking magenta cranberry sauce). In fact, there was more food than I recall seeing at Thanksgivings of any kind. To top it off, we even got to take home leftovers. I’m still swimming in food heaven.
Of course, I couldn’t help myself but go a bit manic and bring not one, but three dishes along, which thankfully wasn’t interpreted as overbearing by our hosts. :) So to log this year’s contributions, and also since we’re too exhausted to do a post-Thanksgiving this year, what follows are a few short words and some quickly-snapped pictures of the dishes we brought.
First was a savory Mushroom and Onion Tart. I used purchased puff pastry for this, and next time I may bake the pastry first rather than with the topping on (or perhaps just use less topping, or use a thicker crust), because the middle slices were a bit too soft to hold easily in the hand. It’s a mixture of caramelized onions, sautéed oyster and shiitake mushrooms with fresh thyme, topped with a few sliced kalamatas and some shredded Gruyère.
The other things were brought were, of course, desserts. Tiramisù is a nice crowd-pleaser, and my mad scientist makes a wonderful one. Along with all the typical ingredients, like savoiardi, mascarpone, and good-quality espresso, he uses a special Portuguese twist (which you can probably guess). The recipe is from a highly amusing and talented friend, Dushyanth.
As one dessert just didn’t seem like enough to my sugar-obsessed brain, I made a Lemon Cream Tart, using Pierre Hermé’s ultra-decadent Lemon Cream recipe. I did cut down the butter only slightly, and frankly am glad to have done so, as more would have been way over the top. The cream is supremely luxurious and rich, but I couldn’t resist adding some chopped crystallized ginger to gild the lily. I’ll post the full recipe for this tomorrow.
