It's the REAL Thanksgiving, y'all!

Starting off right - with a picture of dinner.

Because I'm a big idiot I forgot to book any time off for Thanksgiving this weekend. Both sides of the the family did the dinner thing on Sunday, so with no prospect of a big food coma inducing dinner on the horizon, I took those reins into my own hands and decided to make a fairly traditional Thanksgiving meal for just the three of us.

Pre icing

Menu
Seitan Turkey
Mushroom Gravy
Roasted Acorn Squash
Mashed Potatoes
Beets
Wax Beans
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing

The roast was pretty good. I had some anger issues when I was making it because my dough hook was being a crappy old son of a bitch, so I had to do the first ten minutes of kneading by hand. These hands are not made for manual labour, people. That was hard work. Ian's criticism is that it won't make him tired and gassy - for shame.

For the gravy, I followed the recipe I posted last week, except that I added some dried porcinis. I soaked them in hot water (one cup) for 45 minutes first and then used the mushroom water in place of one cup of the broth.

Pretty Shallots

I roasted the squash with the turkey for the last hour and a half because the oven temp was lower than I would do squash by itself. It turned out perfectly, and I just added salt and pepper to serve it.

Mashed potatoes... well if you don't know how to make mashed potatoes. I don't know what to say. I used Earth Balance and veg stock and a spoonful of dijon in mine; I also boiled them with 4 cloves of garlic. Pretty typical mashed potatoes, yes?

I like beets pretty simply done; roasted in a tin foil package with a couple tablespoons of water, some salt and pepper and a drizzle of oil for an hour and a bit (425F or so). Then I peel them, cut them into chunks, drizzle with olive oil and good balsamic and then salt and pepper to taste.

The cupcakes were dreamy. For serious. So good. Make them now and always. That's an order.

Fun Artsy Icing Squiggles

Lesson time: don't bother buying these pretty tulip cupcake papers. They're $5.50 for only 15 wrappers. They're so thin the oil is really evident. And really, they're just silly. So yeah.