Thursday, November 24, 2011

An Epic Thanksgiving Feast

Man I should have started making all this food the day before!  This year easily beats last year. More skillz and better ingredients thanks to the superior Paleo way of eating (sorry Vegans, I believe these recipes are healthier than last years dairy and almost meat free ones!).
I won't bore you with my description of all the recipes so this will be more of Thanksgiving Food Porn. Enjoy.
I was excited weeks before for this Heritage Turkey, thanks to El Salchichero. Yes that means eat all the delicious fat possible for those desirable Omega 3's and fat soluble vitamins.  A Torchon cooked Sous-Vide so all I had to do was brown the outside (in Ghee, which I am obsessed with all of a sudden) and then heat in the oven for 2 hours.  And make stock! But that deserves a whole separate post coming soon for various good reasons.
The Lemon, Sage and Spices wrapped in the inside were absolutely insane!
The 'Gravy' I made by simply reducing some of the stock I made was amazing on everything.  No cream or flour included! (I got 3 delicious containers of stock...going to be slurping turkey jelly all day!-stay tuned)
Now onto my plate before dissecting each component:
In the bottom middle is my stuffing. Pictured below steaming in the light! I omitted the sausage/mushrooms and used coconut oil. It was a hit (only dish at the table to compete with a standard 'normal' stuffing). I didn't miss the bread at all.
This had no recipe, just a bit of guidance from SnackingSquirrel and my own experience of eating baked sweet potatoes and squash a couple times a day.
A mix mash of Parsnips, Colored Carrots, Delicata Squash, Acorn Squash, and Kabocha Squash. With a bit of Ghee. Nothing like delicious buttery (better yet-Toffee like thanks to Ghee) squash, especially the mushy Acorn.
A salad dressing thanks to Oh She Glows, followed exactly for once.
I liked the dressing (above) even better than our cranberry sauce, the perfect blend of tart, sweet, and sour and tasty on everything.
Cranberry sauce. Enough said.
Mashed Yams/Sweet Potatoes like last year. This was über popular once again. Simply steam, mash, and mix in 1/2c Coconut Milk and 1 generous Tbsp of Coconut Oil. Creamy, sweet, and delicious, nice with a touch of cranberry sauce/dressing.
 Onto making pies. Above are the Pecan Pie filling ingredients about to be processed, it called for 3 eggs but 1 had a double yolk so I got a bonus yolk! I was stoked since that's never happened to me before. Thank you Farm-Fresh Eggs.
 Close and personal, this pie ended up quite delicious but a little bit nut buttery/energy bar like.  I love it like Almond paste/Marzipan, especially with Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream but am more of a liquidy pecan filling kind of guy.
 The epic crust for the Pumpkin Pie. I followed this for both crusts but got way more pecans into the pumpkin one, which made it way better. I could just make it as a cookie if I added a hint of ginger!
 Boom. 
Pre Oven Pecan.

Donezo! I should of cooked it longer but couldn't because of the crust getting overdone, next time I'll do the crust less the first time around.
 I enjoyed with a bit of Fage Greek Yogurt as well as Coconut Bliss Vanilla Bean (which was so good, the bean part so strong it was almost like coffee ice cream).  The Pumpkin filling was a bit like Pumpkin pudding, not super firm and very creamy.
They go together quite well. In fact I had a slice of each for breakfast today and again after training.
 The whole table, this year only my dishes were present! Except for one imposter stuffing...
Ok I can't take credit for the gourmet turkey, El Salchichero I don't know what I'd do without you.

Cooking from 7 to 5 was well worth it for the 30 minutes of eating (plus several leftover meals).

Now leftovers for days if they last and the wonders of stock coming soon.

As part of the Foodbuzz Featured Publisher program, I have been entered for the chance to win a trip to Greece courtesy of FAGE. You too can enter to win one of three trips to Greece by entering the FAGE Plain Extraordinary Greek Getaway here: http://www.fageusa.com/community/fage-greek-getaway.

2 comments:

  1. Wow man that all looks awesome! Although, I'm a little bit confused by the shape of your turkey? Was it just a breast, or is that just what the whole thing looks like when you cook it sous vide?

    I want those sweet potatoes too! Well, ok I want all of that food. I didn't get any leftovers since I wasn't the host this year- although my dad sent me beautiful pictures of the turkey he did out on our smoker... bastard.

    And the fage yogurt is the best- I found full fat in the grocery store and its soooo much better than even the 2% version.

    Do you make your own ghee or buy it somewhere?

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  2. Since the Turkey is a Torchon it has the bones removed and then it's sort of wrapped I think (you can sort of see the spiral in the sliced picture). It looks more like a breast because it's cooked perfectly even all the way through

    I like Fage 0% fat because it's still creamy but doesn't have the fat from conventionally raised cows, I go Strauss or St Benoit for the full fat stuff. Plus it's also nice to have the option for a protein only snack sometimes (especially post workout for faster absorption)

    I bought my Ghee, this kind b/c it was there: http://www.ancientorganics.com/
    But I think there's a lot of good grass fed widely available options

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