Best Thanksgiving. Ever.

I could go into great detail about how wonderful the white balsamic was with the roasted carrots and parsnips, or how the roasted sweet potato wedges were perfect with the sour cream chile sauce, or how rosemary added subtle fragrance to almost every dish, but I feel that would bore just about anyone but myself.  I know we all had wonderful, beautiful, exquisite, delicious Thanksgivings in our own unique ways, so I feel the best way to share my own is through pictures.  And when it comes down to it, what do we remember about Thanksgiving..the new cooking techniques and flavors, or the great conversation had while eating?

My Thanksgiving consisted of me, my mom, dad and our new kitty. The thing is, for me, the new recipes and techniques are the most exciting part because my family I should be catching up with and exchanging stories with is all in Wisconsin.  And while we had great conversation, my mom and I had too much fun cooking for five hours and testing Bon Appétit recipes I'm sure will be at Thanksgivings to come.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving 2.0 with more traditional fair including turkey and mashed potatoes.  Today, we tried four new Bon Appétit recipes along with a couple traditional ones.  We have always had ham growing up because my mom claims we never liked turkey, so today we made ham.  I hope your Thanksgivings were as memorable, warm, comforting and of course, delicious as mine.

I felt, that this year we had the most delicious Thanksgiving ever.  Everything from scratch (except Pillsbury crescent roll, which are so perfect I don't even want to attempt making biscuits) and everything included fresh produce, fresh herbs and simple ingredients.  I knew we were in for a good Thanksgiving when our shopping list was more than predominantly fresh produce.  It was perfect.  Our menu consisted of:

• Sweet Potato Wedges with Smoked Chile Cream
• Sage Sausage and Apple Dressing my absolute favorite dressing of all time, I wait 364 days for it
• Celery and Pear Bisque a new favorite- very light, subtle but delicious
• Roasted Cranberry Sauce with Herbed Candied Walnuts 
• Roasted Carrots and Parsnips with White Balsamic
• Bone-in smoked ham from Everett's with a homemade apple/butter glaze
• Of course, Pillsbury crescent rolls

Glazing the ham

White Thanksgiving

Takes muscle to mix dressing

Unlimited chopping, peeling, mincing

Mom got a crack at her new immersion blender!

mmmmmm....ham

I'd love to hear your Thanksgiving stories and recipes, so please comment!

Our new unnamed kitty says happy Thanksgiving!