We're on Sunday of Thanksgiving week, and it has been, as per tradition, a long weekend of too much eating and drinking. It also caps off a busy travel month for me. I typically don't travel much at all, but this month took me on a five day trip to Canada and another five day trip to Mexico.
The travel to Canada was for a conference in Toronto. It needed a lot of prep in terms of what my colleagues and I had to present at the conference, and also in terms of getting together a business casual wardrobe with blazers and button-down shirts and nice pants. My regular work outfits lean way too much into the casual side of things. Also, I had to acquire a heavy jacket, something we rarely need in the South. Toronto was getting its first snow of the season as we landed, and for a few days I got to experience real wintry weather. It was a great trip- I got to see colleagues that I usually only see virtually, and had lunch with some family members that I was seeing after 20 years!
The travel to Mexico was pretty much the exact opposite in terms of outfits and weather- it was for a destination wedding on V's side of the family. Glitzy weddings and all-inclusive resorts are both very much out of my comfort zone, but here we are. Again, my simple wardrobe falls short whenever special events with dress codes come up. My sister bailed me out by letting me borrow a suitcase worth of Indian outfits, including a beautiful saree. It was balmy in Mexico and the pool was lovely. A couple of pics from this trip are at the bottom of the post.
With all the travel behind me, I had only a couple of days to think of the Thanksgiving meal. Luckily, the menu for Thanksgiving is predictable from year to year. We hosted a small Friendsgiving with 6 adults and 4 kids crowded around the table. On Thanksgiving day, I cooked all morning. Guests arrived at 1 pm and V served up hibiscus-rum cocktails. We ate the big meal at 1:30, then went for a mile-long walk around the neighborhood and came back for coffee and dessert. It was a beautiful Fall day, sunny and crisp-cold.
Here's our menu with linked recipes and notes.
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| Vegetarian nut loaf |
- Mains
- Vegetarian nut loaf. I used cheddar cheese instead of Swiss. This is an excellent holiday main dish.
- Gardein Plant-Based Turk'y Roast (baked right out of the box). I usually buy the one from Trader Joe's but learned this year that it has been discontinued.
- Sides
- Mashed potatoes- no exact recipe, made in the Instant Pot.
- Southern macaroni and cheese
- Thanksgiving slaw- I used 50:50 green and red cabbage for color.
- Vegetarian stuffing, made by a guest with carrots instead of celery- probably the best stuffing I've ever tasted.
- Eggplant parmesan, made by a guest who is Italian-Australian- an authentic and delicious recipe, and much less heavy and cheesy than the Italian-American version.
- Cranberry sauce
- Gravy- this one I had to make twice as the first one was salty to the point of being inedible. So I made a second batch without salt and mixed the two.
- Desserts
- Apple crumble, made by my Australian guests.
- Pecan pie, brought by my friend.
- Pumpkin pie, described in more detail below.
I bake pies only rarely, so it sometimes feeling like I am re-learning the process every year. For the pie crust, I used this recipe and it is truly as easy and flaky as it claims to be. I used a food processor for the whole thing-
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| Pumpkin pie |
- adding a portion of the flour and all of the butter (and a touch of salt and sugar) to the food processor bowl
- pulsing until the mixture is sandy and pale yellow
- adding the rest of the flour and pulsing it in
- adding ice water a bit at a time and pulsing until the mixture clumps together
- patting and portioning into two pie dough disks and refrigerating overnight
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| Bottom crust! |
- Instead of a glass pie plate, I used an 8 inch metal cake pan (I don't own a metal pie plate). Metal conducts heat better than glass.
- Instead of baking on the middle rack, I used the bottom rack of the oven as it is closer to the heating element.
- I placed a metal baking sheet on the bottom rack while preheating so that the pie crust would land on a hot surface while blind baking.
- I also did the blind baking for long enough that the bottom crust had a strong color.
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| My sister's beautiful pumpkin pie! |
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On Friday, we were invited to another Friendsgiving meal, and my friend went all out with an array of vegetarian dishes. My personal favorite was this roasted winter squash with citrus chile crisp- a recent recipe from the NYTimes cooking app.
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| roasted squash- perfectly spiced |
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My favorite meal in Mexico was the traditional South Indian wedding thali served for lunch after the morning wedding- absolutely sumptuous, and it kept us full for about 24 hours.
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| Wedding thali |
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| A cute coatimundi on resort grounds |
Now on to December, which promises to be busy with many projects at work, cookie-baking, gifts for teachers, and many events to attend.
But also hopefully with a couple of weeks completely off work with some time to read and finally sew that dress I've been meaning to make for months.
Tell me your highlights from the month of November!