Thanksgiving potluck

9 of us and a dog gathered for Thanksgiving potluck on Mon. It was the perfect combination of the finest food and company to remind us what we are most grateful for, family we were born into and family that we chose (friends).

There was so much food that I couldn't get it all in one photo! The buffet line started with mashed red skinned potatoes with garlic and sour cream (and some left over tzatziki), brussel sprouts sauteed in pancetta and onions with sherry and balsamic vinegar, quinoa stuffing with leeks.mushrooms and sausage, baked cauliflower with a tri-cheese crust, steamed corn (cut straight from the cob in mid Summer and frozen in all it's glory for this occasion), crisp coleslaw with cranberries in it, home made cranberry sauce (with wild cranberries) and the bird! Cooked in a bag, think it took about 2 and something hours to cook a 16lb bird this way. I wasn't convinced when I first heard the idea but it does work, the bag catches all the juices conveniently for you too and the meat doesn't dry out. I went to carve it and it pretty much fell off the bones! Only thing you don't get is crispy skin, so if you are a fan of that then you have to compromise for the speed and neatness, or just go about it the old fashioned way!

We rounded up dinner with the maple/pumpkin cheesecake and a ginger/pecan crust and a traditional home made pumpkin pie. And then the turkey coma set in...

Gluten free stuffing!

One of my other contributions to the pot luck lunch for Thanksgiving is stuffing. Seeing as one of the party goes gluten free and I try to avoid it, and because I love quinoa, this seemed like the way to go!....leek, mushroom and sausage quinoa stuffing. The recipe idea comes from good old Quinoa 365 but has been doctored a little.

I quartered and finely chopped a leek and started it frying in some olive oil in a medium sized pot. On top of that I added 2 sticks of finely chopped celery and about 8 cremini mushrooms chopped. Once this had fried a bit, I added about 1 1/2 cups of quinoa and maybe 3 cups of chicken stock. I was meant to add savoury and a bay leaf but in their absence I added a generous pinch/pinches of basil, thyme and rosemary and a few shakes of Worcester sauce, salt and pepper! I put the lid on and let it cook away on a low heat until the quinoa was almost cooked, about 10minutes.  Add liquid as needed, if needed. Turn the heat off and let it sit for another 10minutes.

In a frying pan I fried until brown the meat of 3 sausages. I chose traditional British banger style ones, though mild Italian would be good too or even a breakfast sausage. Just split the skin with a sharp knife and take the meat out of the casing and break it up with your fingers as you drop it into the pan. Fry it until it is brown. Then I took it out and finely chopped it on a cutting board and added it to the rest of the stuffing with a few generous knobs of butter (tbsps x 3 or 4). I made it today and mixed it all together and am letting it sit overnight so that the flavours infuse and hopefully tomorrow it will taste even better.

It is a really good option for stuffing being gluten free and full of protein. It can easily be made vegetarian by using vegetable stock and no sausage. It could also be eaten on it's own as well as it is so filling and wholesome, but I am looking forward to paring it with turkey and letting the richness of the pork and herbs compliment the turkey meat.Yum!

Pumpkin/maple cheese cake on a ginger/pecan crust - Happy Thanksgiving!

Once again, it has been a while. I received an email from my cousin and dear friend today saying that she was about to give up checking my blog because I may never write again! That was motive enough. Poor excuses to follow; long working hours, not home for dinner, nothing of interest to write about......

It is Thanksgiving this weekend and I am going to Megan's for a potluck dinner which she and I basically had planned weeks ago and have been looking forward to ever since! Needless to say there will be a full report on the actual dinner itself, but for now, a little on what I have been working on in anticipation of it.

Dessert has to be pumpkin related that goes without question. Tis the season. And while the typical pumpkin pie is tempting, I decided to try out a pumpkin cheese cake. A quick Google search brought up a multitude of options so I browsed through them all and came up with a mish-mash recipe that had all the things that sounded good to me.

For the crust I found a packet of ginger snap biscuits (cookies) that had cinnamon in them, they were called Spice Snaps I think. I put 3/4 of the packet in a ziplock bag and beat it with my rolling pin and then rolled it with the rolling pin to turn the cookies into crumbs. I did the same with some pecans, aiming for a total of about 2 1/2 cups of dry ingredient. My cheese cake tin is slightly bigger than the usual one so I had to try and beef up the recipes so that they wouldn't look pathetic at the bottom of my pan. The usual recipe used 1/3cup of melted butter in the crust, I used slighlty more because I was using more crumb matter. I mixed it together and pressed it into the tin and baked it at 350 for 10minutes then let it cool.

I had let 2 tubs (400g each) of cream cheese warm to room temperature for a while so that they would beat nicely. The recipes used pumpkin puree and because I had left it so late there was none to be found and I had to settle for pumpkin pie filler, which is already sweetened. This meant using less sugar in the mixture as it was already half way there. I like the idea of maple with pumpkin so I used some maple syrup and a tiny bit of brown sugar to help it along the way. The recipes used 3 eggs but my eggs were small and I used a little more filling than usual too so I used 4 eggs. I think 3 would be fine. So, beat the cream cheese, sugar, maple syrup, vanilla essence together and add the pumpkin, half a can, which is about a cup. Then you beat in the eggs one at a time. I had also let the eggs warm to room temperature as they are easier to work with like that.

One of the recipes did some fancy marbelling thing with half the mix plain and the other half with the pumpkin so it swirled cream and orange coloured. I put pumpkin in it all and then added even more pumpkin (another half cup roughly) to the last cup of mix to make it richer in flavour. My marbelling skills were not up to par but you could tell there were 2 parts to it at least.

The cheese cake baked at 350 for 55minutes. I had a dish with water in the oven at the same time to keep the air moist in an effort to stop it from cracking. Note 'effort'. There were still some cracks but not too bad. Your cheesecake should wobble in the middle when you take it out because it will continue to cook for quite some time once it has come out of the oven and you do not want a dry cheesecake.

I made the cheese cake last night and today I decided it was due a taste test before it went round to be presented at lunch! I love the ginger and pecan in the crust, it is a deal maker! I think there was too much butter in it, but then it could just be that I am not used to eating rich foods anymore and noticed it. The cheese part was smooth and beautifully flavoured with pumpkin and spice, not too sweet, and you could tell where the marbelling was because it was a different texture. Very rich, but you should expect that with any cheesecake. I am very happy with the outcome. I will serve it with a vanilla/brown sugar whipped cream tomorrow, not that it needs any more richnes to it but it will look pretty!