The Pantry Book

a notebook of homekeeping, crafts, and professional motherhood

Planning a Nourishing Thanksgiving

1 Comment

I am hosting Thanksgiving this year, and I am so excited for a holiday where the theme is eucharisteo (radical gratitude)!!! Just a few things I am grateful for right now: I get to plan the menu exactly how I want, I get to make all the food from scratch (no cans or jars or other industrial food) or purchase it locally (made by hand) – all real food!, I get to spend the day with family and friends and bless them with my cooking, I get to support our local farmer who is raising the turkey (I just love voting with my feet and my wallet!), I get to decorate the Thanksgiving table (I can’t wait!). It looks like we will have 19 people here (10 adults and 9 kids), so I’ve changed a few things around (like adding the ham). I hope we have enough food!!!

We will have:

  • root veggie curry bisque (frozen) for a starter with a yogurt garnish
  • 21-pound pastured turkey (Smockity’s recipe for moist and super-fast cooking turkey, Pioneer Woman’s brine recipe)
  • pastured ham (crockpot recipe here)
  • gravy (easy-peasy using drippings from the turkey sizzled with flour, then broth to thin or arrowroot powder mixed with milk to thicken as necessary)
  • stuffing (recipe here)
  • mashed potatoes with my CSA potatoes
  • sweet potato casserole with my CSA sweet potatoes
  • green bean casserole with homemade crispy shoestring onions (recipe here)
  • 5-spice apple chutney (recipe here)
  • raw Chocolate Mousse Pie (recipe here except sub sucanat for agave syrup)
  • pumpkin pie (recipe NT p. 562, or here)(I’ll be using Heavenly Homemaker’s pie crust recipe using palm shortening – it’s good for you!) 35 – 45 min @ 350 degrees
  • apple pie (NT p. 564) 45 min @ 375 degrees

This week, I need to buy raisins, 6 cups of apples and 1 cup pecans to make the apple chutney

Next week, I will be in VA for Everett’s therapy on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I’d like to get any prep I can on Monday, then hope for some very productive evenings (pray I don’t get stuck in traffic on the way home) on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Monday – grocery shopping and misc. prep

  • make ice in the deep freezer to add to the turkey brine
  • Grocery list:
    • 5 avocados
    • apple juice or cider
    • 5 oranges
    • fresh rosemary
    • arrowroot powder
    • sucanat
    • 15 tart apples
    • small pumpkins
    • green beans
    • onions
    • couple sourdough baguettes
    • back-up mango chutneys from Trader Joe’s
    • cranberry sauce from Trader Joe’s

Tuesday – Savory Dish Day

  • turkey will be delivered today, make brine and add turkey to the bucket
  • roast pumpkins & make puree for pie
  • assemble stuffing (one dish for in the turkey, one dish for the side oven) still need to add cubed bread and saute with broth
  • make fermented cranberry chutney YUM!
  • purchase blueberry and cherry pies from MOM’s

Wednesday – Sweet Dish Day

  • roast sweet potatoes, white potatoes
  • assemble green bean casserole in oval dish that fits side oven (prep, but don’t bake)
  • make 3 regular pie crusts and 1 hazelnut pie crust
  • prep pie fillings (apple, pumpkin) (have to wait on avocados for choc mousse)
  • bake assembled pies and remaining crusts
  • set the lovely Thanksgiving table
  • thaw soup in fridge

Thursday – Thanksgiving (dinner served at 2pm)

first thing in the morning

  • put ham in crockpot (add molasses, pineapple juice, maple syrup, and sugar)
  • simmer soup
  • make chocolate mousse pie
  • finish stuffing

11:30

  • put turkey with stuffing in the oven and extra stuffing in the side oven
  • herbed kefir cheese ball appetizer???

1:30

  • turkey out of the oven to rest, then carve
  • sweet potato casserole in the oven
  • green bean casserole in the oven
  • make mashed potatoes on stove
  • make gravy

Author: thepantrybook

Hi! I'm Nicole and this "pantry book" is my notebook of homekeeping, crafts, and professional motherhood. Stay awhile to join me and my family on our journey of eucharisteo (radical gratitude) in the midst of life and loving our amazing Everett, our two-year-old son who lost over half of his brain in a stroke.

One thought on “Planning a Nourishing Thanksgiving

  1. I’m getting hungry looking at all of these delicious recipes.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 80 other followers