Larry made Creamed Spinach (from Jamie Oliver's Best of British Cookbook — highly recommended), Tracie brought mashed potatoes infused with garlic and sage, and I cooked an heirloom squash with lentil loaf. What a feast!
I overcooked the cranberry sauce, so it was more like jam than sauce. Still good. It will be yummy on toast.
Organic freezer corn was a highlight (doesn't that say it all?).The salad of persimmons and pomegranates whetted the appetite. (See the recipe here.)
But I have to say, the squash thoroughly impressed me. I stuffed it with lentil loaf, cooked it at 350°F for 90 minutes or so (until a knife slipped in easily), and then let it rest until the rest of the meal was ready. It was great. And a little spicy. I used crushed dried chiles I'd grown, and it turns out they were pretty hot —a good foil for the sweet orange squash. I sliced it into wedges to serve. (I'm sure turkeys don't slice as easily or look as beautiful.)
The apple pie was delicious - it scented the house with apple and cinnamon and made us think of fall, even though we live on the West Coast where fall means temperatures in the '70s. Before we gathered in the kitchen to cook dinner, I spent time in the garden admiring the birds – warblers, wrens, finches, bulbuls, mockingbirds and bushtits – as I filled the birdbaths, watered the pansies and the fava beans, and rejoiced in the flowering narcissus and the budding peony. Nature is truly a wonder to celebrate.
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| This heirloom pumpkin has a dusky suede-like skin — nature creates the best art. |
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