A bit late getting this up, since we’ve already moved in to full on Christmas prep, but wanted to share a post about our Thanksgiving. This year, we have much to be thankful for. Healthy family, happy home, new opportunities and a table full of delicious food to eat. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year, as its surrounded with food and loved ones. This year, as in the past few years, we were blessed to be able to share the table with our friend Charles, a fantastic cook and great friend. After stuffing ourselves silly, we topped it all off with some apple pie and slivovitz outside on the patio, enjoying a beautiful, clear night sitting around the fire. Can’t ask for a much better way to end a day of thanks.

This year I came in to some leaf lard, courtesy of Cathy Barrow, of Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen, so I used some of that delicious, pure lard in buttermilk biscuits and apple pie. It worked so well mixed with butter in the pie crust (I mean, seriously so good!). The biscuits were delicious as well, but a traditional Southern woman might faint with how much I had to work the dough before cutting out the biscuits, so I think they were probably not as light and flakey as they could have been. But, since I’m a Northerner, through and through, I still thought they were were pretty darn good. If you’d like to make these recipes and can’t get your hands on rendered l lard, regular lard or Crisco will do the job.

I compiled the links to the food I made below, along with one of Charles’ dishes. Everything turned out so great and we ate well on leftovers for a couple days too.

Menu – Thanksgiving 2015

Herb Crusted Spatchcocked Turkey – I tried this method a couple years back, which results in a beautifully crisp skin, perfectly cooked meat – both breast and leg, in less than 2 hours. You lose out on carving a whole roast bird, but you gain so much in flavor and time!

Mashed Potatoes – Made simply with milk, butter, salt and white pepper. I ran these through a food mill to see if I liked them better that way, and to be honest, didn’t notice much of a difference. If anything, I kind of missed those errant potato lumps!

Gravy – Also, made simply with a roux of 4 tablespoons butter melted with 4 tablespoons flour, until it made a golden roux. I whisked in 4 cups of Roasted Chicken Stock and the small amount of juices and fat renderings from the roasted turkey, and let it simmer until thickened.

Cranberry Sauce with Dried Cherries

Leaf Lard Biscuits

Creamed Kale – Man, this was so good, I would definitely make this for a future dinner.

Curried Roast Vegetables – Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, carrots and garlic tossed with coconut oil, olive oil, smoked paprika and curry and roasted to perfection. The flavors were a really interesting, and delicious, complement to the other traditional Thanksgiving flavors.