Saturday: "Thanksgiving"

We celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday with a few friends. It wasn't a big group (total of 6 of us planned, actually 5 there), so I couldn't go completely overboard with food. Consequently things remained pretty calm and collected all day.

Things I made:

1. Three types of spiced nuts:
1. cashews with B&vG spice rub
2. almonds with olive oil, cumin, coriander, paprika, and cayenne
3. pecans with molasses, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon (a hint), a big of mustard, and some butter
   
2. Turkey - filled with apple, onion, sage, and thyme, covered with butter, salt, and pepper then roasted following Bittman's method (breast down for the first hour, then flipped; stock in the bottom of the pan). Once again, the bird cooked quicker than it seemed like it should have. It was done in 2.5 hours instead of 3-3.5 hours. ah well... I was monitoring it pretty closely so it wasn't all dried out. [4.5kg bird, more than enough]
   
3. Stuffing - basically the same as last year (Ruchbrot, mushrooms, onions, celery, sage, thyme, parsley). [1.5 loaves of bread, more than enough]
   
4. Mashed potatoes [1kg potatoes, ok for 5, borderline for 6]
   
5. Mashed sweet potatoes (cooked in the pan) [4 sweet potatoes, borderline for 5]
   
6. Gravy (made by reducing the pan juices with some additional stock and a splash of vermouth then thickening it at the end with potato starch; this was probably my best gravy ever).
   
7. Roasted green beans [1kg, plenty]
   
8. Steamed mixed vegetables (kohrabi and zucchini matchsticks, orange and yellow carrot threads, red carrot rounds) [1.5 kohlrabi, 2 zucchinis, 2 each big orange and yellow carrots, 3 smaller red carrots]
   
9. Green salad

We outsourced the dessert to Nik and Ewa this year: they brought an apple crumble and a chocolate mousse.

It's lucky this was good food because we have LOADS of leftovers.