Our Thanksgiving Feast

Yesterday we celebrated our last Thanksgiving in this little house before moving into Jumbo and beginning a whole set of new traditions. I thoroughly enjoyed creating our feast, since I was able to stretch the preparations out during the entire day. I actually made the cranberry sauce with serrano peppers and orange juice on Wednesday so that the flavors would have plenty of time to meld. Usually I come up with some kind of new and unusual dessert for Thanksgiving, but this year went with the traditional pumpkin pie, simply following the recipe on the back of the pumpkin can. It turned out perfect!

Larry had found some vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes on Huffington Post, and we decided on a vegetable pot pie with sweet potato biscuit topping for our entree. I actually combined two different pot-pie recipes for the filling and added some touches of my own. It was so pretty that I wished we had company so that I could show it off!

Ready to go into the oven...

Fresh out of the oven, all bubbly with puffed up crust.

I decided that it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes and mushroom-miso gravy. I came upon the gravy recipe in one of Crescent Dragonwagon's cookbooks a few years ago - she's a fascinating person, as well as an inspiring cook - and it's been a part of our holiday dinner ever since, as well as any time during the year that we feel in need of some real comfort food. Nothing is a soothing as a big bowl of mashed potatoes! I simmered the gravy for a LONG time so that it had a chance to thicken up...

The baby red potatoes boiling away.

We also had sauteed brussels sprouts with toasted pecans, but I forgot to snap a photo!

So now it's the morning after, and I'm enjoying a slice of pumpkin pie for breakfast! Yummm....