Mine was mostly good too, but I got the sugar snap peas from the open bin rather than the somewhat stringless ones in the packet because they're usually nicer. And they were. But after I cleaned and strung them, I left them in the bowl on the table! Now, I'm going to have to cook them (they were meant to be part of the crudité). :) OTOH, the avocadoes were perfect! With ordering, I usually end up with one unusable, but not this time. They were splendid! And the guacamole needed no "help"--they were equally tasty as lovely. Except half the company, for various reasons, couldn't attend, and I split the remainder with the hostess--I don't usually get any guacamole left!

I finally got to make this carrot dip recipe: https://www.food.com/recipe/moroccan-carrot-dip-112229 which I've had open for ever so long. It's a keeper! I made it as written except for I goosed the garlic just a little. It also gets better and better as it sits, so it's a good candidate for make ahead, except maybe the last drizzle of olive oil. Rather than using pitot, I got a package of pita chips. They were a little oilier than usual, but fine, and I think the crunch worked really well.

Ours is tomorrow (the cop and the nurse had to work TG) That's OK, the Grand kids are too young to notice what day it is, anyway!

We'll be having enchiladas (pork and chicken, red and green) a taco bar and a big salad. I'm making a cherry pie from my tree. The tomato sauce is from the garden, tomatillos not so much, well, partly.

I learned that 128F is a couple degrees too high for lamb - sous vide to 125F was better. I also learned about grease fires and the fireballs created by vaporizing oil. SMWBO outdid herself with desserts, but my sister’s dinner scheduling didn’t really highlight desserts so most of the pies weren’t eaten. I loved her green bean casserole and finished that off myself. My mushrooms stuffed with salmon-mushroom mousse were popular. My sister was going to discard the turkey carcass and bones - I claimed them and am making a huge pot of turkey stock, and the rats are enjoying their own Thanksgiving feast of meaty leg bones. Bones are good for their teeth! Overall, a good meal and I actually ate fairly modestly. Wine, however, was a different story. SWMBO drove us home!

I had posted here for help/advice/clarification on how long and to what temp to do the pork shoulder roast. It came out perfect! Four old ladies for dinner and we had the roast, broccoli, my favorite cranberry relish, roasted sweet potatoes with a sour cream based topping, great sourdough bread from a new bakery, and pumpkin pie.

So untraditional except for the cranberry relish and the pie, but we had a great meal.

John, can you post your recipe for mushrooms stuffed with salmon-mushroom mousse? That sounds like something I would really like, and I've never heard of it before.

Lars, no real recipe, I just made it up. Just your basic upside down mushrooms with stuff piled in them.

Salmon, cooked however convenient (I used a pan), but don’t overcook (stop as soon as no longer translucent). Doesn’t matter if the skin stays on. Big brown mushrooms, break off the stems, sautee the stems in pan with butter until browned. Meanwhile roast the mushroom caps, arranged in a pan concave side up so the liquid collects in the cap, maybe 20 min at 350F. Drain and save the liquid. Move the caps to the pan, more butter, brown the caps. Arrange caps, concave side up, on platter. Put salmon, mushroom stems, and mushroom liquid in blender. Puree to smooth while adding enough heavy cream for desired consistency and texture. Move to workbowl, add quite a lot of finely minced chives while hand whipping. Season with salt, white pepper or wasabi, and lemon juice, while whipping. Spoon or pipe into mushroom caps.

There’s complicated salmon mousse recipes with lots of ingredients. I think of this as a simple, fast basic method.

Qty, I am not sure, something like 4 oz salmon to two dozen mushrooms, and start at 1/2 cup cream and add more as needed. You don’t need much salmon, this is something I sometimes do with the trimmed ends of large fillets. The chives are mostly visual, so can sub parsley, cilantro, anything green.

Someday I’ll try whipping most of the cream first, then folding in the puree’d salmon-mushroom. It would be cool to get salmon-mushroom whipped cream - different from a mousse but maybe cooler.

If you want to have more fun, cut off the salmon skin before cooking the salmon. Fry the skin with plenty of oil and salt, then cut into thin strips and fry more until crunchy, use to garnish or just to munch on.

I also ate an egg to be conscientious about protein, but polished off the guacamole for breakfast. And a small slice of pie, which, if I'd thought it though did have egg and milk in it... The company really liked the pie. Phew! Except, when the hostess cousin heard chocolate crust and chocolate chips, she asked me to make and bring one, and kind of ignored the pumpkin part. She doesn't like pumpkin and didn't like the pie. But there were also regular pumpkin pie and a really sweet crumble topped apple pie. Since only half the people were there, there were leftovers, and I was asked for a big chunk to take home by one cousin for his wife and son.

Since I was asked to make a 9" rather than 10" deep dish like the original recipe, I realized I could scale the crust to 2/3. Magic! While I have a 1/3 tsp measure, what is 1/3 of a tablespoon but a teaspoon? I used pastry flour (9% protein) because the first time the 11% protein AP crust seemed too cookie-ish. I measured as I was transferring a new bag to a canister, and I think it was a little too fluffy. For bread, I measure flour by weight, but to me, a 9" pie crust is a cup of dip measured flour and mine was over aerated. So I was rolling and pushing more to get my full circle. and even so had to patch the edges a bit. It really needed a little more flour. The switch to pastry flour was otherwise a good idea. Even after having been beaten up, it was tender.

In the time between not quite baked and three more minutes, it got very dark with one charred looking spot--it wasn't really char but looked very dark. I was also worried it was going to be too sweet because the caramel sauce poured off the spoon instead of drizzling. It was just right however. My notes from last time said to use mini-chips. I did for white and semi-sweet, but the milk chocolate chips were full sized. They all melted. I think the previous ones must have been very stale to hold their shapes as well as they did. The little pear pieces also melted, and the caramel sauce distributed, making the custard pleasantly sweet (there's also actual sugar in it) against the roasted pumpkin, but none of it screams sugar! The spiciness isn't obvious or overpowering, though some of the chocolate crust edges were spicy which must have been the custard slopping over a bit and leaving spice behind.

One of the cousins, who liked it, kept interrogating me about what it was called. In my recipe app, it's called JC's chocolate crust pumpkin pie. Describing it as I was serving, I said, "Pumpkin Pear Chocolate-Crust Chocolate-Chip and Caramel Pie" so they'd anticipate correctly. Neither of these satisfied him. So I finally said, "Pumpkin. It's pumpkin pie." Because it is! The roasted pumpkin squares are as authentically just pumpkin as can be. Delicious pumpkin, but pure. Said cousin wasn't having it. :) I gave up and went into the kitchen, or I might have told him the real name of the pie was "Fred". That would be dangerous not because squabbling with cousins is so bad but for the reason that in five years I might have forgotten it, and been asked to bring Fred pie.

The first time I made this it was really pretty. This one looks like it has a sunburn and explosive acne, though it looked better than the picture after being in the fridge over night.

So, the part about scaling which I just didn't think of is the custard! I scaled the pie crust from enough for 10" deep dish plus stand up fluting to just 9" by multiplying by 2/3 to get it to 1 cup of flour and ignoring the volume of the cocoa and butter but doing a straight scale. It's fine. I had plenty of roasted pumpkin, and just put the squares closer together in the bottom and used one large red pear instead of two smaller yellow ones because the latter went bad in the fridge. But I didn't scale the custard so had a lot leftover, especially since the 9" dish is shallower, even if the crust is thinner, and I left less space between the pumpkin pieces.

Worth it! I just poured the custard in a dish and added a handful of dried cherries (all that were left), a goodly sprinkle of pepitas and some pecan halves which I tried to float to look pretty, though a few sank. I think any such like dried fruit, seeds and nuts would be fine. I did drizzle in some of the caramel sauce and I think it made it too sweet. OTOH, this would be good with a hard sauce. It would also make a killer bread pudding. :)

This is the full recipe for the custard. I measured the dish volume by eye. I think, like the crust, the actual pie used 2/3 of the custard, meaning the shown result was about 1/3.

JC's Autumn Spiced Baked Custard

1 cup light brown sugar, loosely measured, not packed

1.5 cups 6% milk warmed in MW

1 Small pinch flor de sal salt (or use salted butter instead of butter and salt)

2 TBSP butter

4 large eggs

1 good sprinkle dash Penzey's Ethiopian-style Pepper Blend (cayenne red pepper, garlic, ginger, fenugreek, cardamom, cumin, black pepper, allspice, turmeric, cloves, Ceylon cinnamon and coriander. )

1 good sprinkle dash Smoked Spanish Paprika

2 + good sprinkle dashes more Ceylon Cinnamon

1 cup squished roasted pumpkin

1/8 c tiny diced pear, squished

Add-ins (opt.): Dried fruit, seeds, nuts, chocolate chips--watch the sweetness--I used dried sweet cherries, raw pepitas and raw pecan halves.

In a small enamelled pan over low heat, melt the butter into the sugar, add the warmed milk in a drizzle to get all the sugar wet and dissolved, stirring. Set aside to cool some. Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl. Drizzle in the milk and sugar mixture so as not to cook the eggs. Add the spices and stir well. Add the pumpkin and pear purées and make sure to beat out any lumps.

Spray a smooth glazed baking dish with oil or grease with solid shortening. Pour in the custard and drop the add-ins where you want them.

Bake at 375° F for about 40 minutes until the top looks solid and a tester comes out of the center clean.

Please note, I wasn't trying to make this pretty, so it's even uglier than usual, but delicious.

Your pie and small baked pumpkin custard pilllog look and sound delicious. I too had left over pumpkin custard mixture so made a couple of custard pots for DH and I to have the night before. We enjoyed these alot and I plan to make the custard mixture again as a flan with a caramel sauce on the botton like a Creme Caramel Flan. I’m pretty sure someone else here has mentioned doing this in the past. DH loved the simple smooth custard in the pot without the pastry of the pie although he did enjoy the pie as well on Thanksgiving Day.

Neely, that's very pretty with the nuts arranged so nicely! The crème caramel version sounds lovely too! I appreciate your stack of terms. :) For me, flan is a specific version of Mexican crème caramel where the top is thick and the body is eggy yellow, but I know it means something else in England and the rest of Europe, but I lose track of what it is.

So, just now I was thinking about the pumpkin stew I made for home meals this week. It was (is? There's some in the freezer too) very good, but the beef never did the stew apart thing. Then it dawned on me! It's pumpkin stew! No acid tomatoes. Duh! And not enough sugar to do the trick either. So, I've written down the ingredients as best as I can remember. I'm sure any cheap but palatable white wine would work, and the lovely Riesling was just because I opened it at a dinner some time back and didn't have any takers. Anyway, this would be better with a soft cut of beef, or ground, but it's still really good. :)

• 2 roasted sugar pie pumpkins
• 2 lbs beef
• 2 lbs Italian chicken sausage, one spicy
• 1 very large onion, chopped
• 3 large stalks celery, chopped
• 5 oz shitake, sliced
• 1 lb white mushrooms, sliced
• 2 red Anaheim peppers, chopped
• 1-2 TBSP Herbes de Province
• Seasoning to taste
• half a bottle of Riesling
• Lite olive oil

We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here but DD and her DH and baby went to her SIL’s home to have an early Christmas with her SIL and family and her FIL and his wife, all of whom won’t be able to join the rest of us at Christmas. DD has never particularly liked baking but she’s made the odd baked dessert with recipe help from me :-D

For this weekend she told me she was channeling me as she made a white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake and a pumpkin pie to take. There were only six adults and a seven year old but she said there wasn’t much left 😂👍

Flan here, is a dense eggy thing that I think you have to be born Breton to eat. For me, it settles like a brick in my stomach. You can pick it up in your hands. But a crème caramel is a light custard with the delicious sauce that coats the outside. Needs a spoon Yum.

If anyone remembers from the previous Thanksgiving plans thread, our reduced family dinner (just 5 of us) was catered. And it was delicious!! The turkey breast was perfectly cooked and very juicy and flavorful (brined in cider), the stuffing and mashed pots were excellent as well....ditto the gravy, cranberry relish and veg. Dessert was a pumpkin panna cotta and it was also delicious, I was too full and took most of mine home. The dinner was a big success and we all decided we would do a catered dinner again.

The best part of my day was arriving at my sister's - our hostess - with our shared pup in tow as I had custody of him for the previous 3 days. He could barely restrain himself in the elevator and beelined for his door as soon as it opened and then rocketed all around the house looking for his second mommy and then erupting into paroxysms of joy once he found her!! Hard not to be very thankful for the love of a devoted fur baby :-)

I am also very thankful to spend the evening with my eldest niece and her two teenage boys. Her eldest just started college in CA so we don't see him often. And my niece is enduring the ravages of stage 4 bone cancer and she may not have many Thanksgivings left so we make the most out of what we can when we can.

On the rare occasion that I cook the entire T-day meal, I have always roasted a whole turkey with all the classic sides from my youth. This year, I made an herb & butter roasted breast... it looked to be done early, and the temp was 165F so I took it out of the oven. It was absolutely delicious and seriously was the best turkey breast meat I have ever eaten in my life. The brand was Kirkland (?) from Aldi.

plllog, beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder because your custard with pecans and pumpkin seeds and browned edges is the kind of thing that excites me. lol!

eta: gardengal, we were posting at the same time... so sorry about your niece.

I tried stuffing balls this year instead of the traditional way of stuffing the turkey, and surprisingly they were a big hit. I liked the stuffing better this way, too -- no mushiness, faster to get the turkey in the oven in the morning, and less hassle at carving time.

I finally had a spare time this morning to write down this years notes. We have hosted at home with close friends or with our families since 1987. The traditional cast of characters...turkey, stuffing/dressing, mashed potatoes, various cranberry sauces...a big platter of roasted roots and vegetables. A rotating supporting cast of sides. Always trying something new. Very few traditions but this one we enjoy cooking together. X-mas eve is always oyster stew but all others before and after are always different. Always seafood. New years day...always ham, black-eyed peas, greens. Christmas Day and New years eve, always lots of seafood.

This year we pre-ordered a petite turkey, 9 pounds, and 4 big turkey legs. Spatchchoked the turkey...the legs went into the smoker at one pm. Turkey into the oven at two pm. Perfect timing. Spatchoking the turkey made it low profile leaving a rack above and another below for roasting the veg and cooking/heating/browning the stuffings.

2019 pic like every year...

The biggest hits this year were the smoked turkey legs, a fennel/celery slaw/salad, oyster dressing, and a new pecan pie recipe.

Never thought my friends would like the oyster dressing. We started making it for just the two of us during initial lock-down. A family recipe I grew up with on the Chesapeake Bay. (should have made double). Fennel shaved salad, (should have tripled)...both gone in minutes.

Sleevendog - we adore oyster stuffing! Our Thanksgiving this year was comprised of 3 people and 2 Australian Shepherds. We invited a pescatarian friend to dinner at our house. We made Cioppino and garlic bread.

Our friend brought homemade pizelle cookies, and I made pumpkin cheesecake bars .

We had lots of leftovers and sent some home with her.

Mine was nice. SO worked and was gone all day, and I had done all the heavy duty cooking for someone else the day before. So I had the whole house to myself for most of the day. Other than a short stay at my sisters house after delivering her food, I came home and cooked ours. I have some sort of affliction where every time I cook a big meal, when its done, I want nothing to do with it. I served SO his plate then slunk off to the kitchen and ate pie. Only pie. Pumpkin, homemade with cool whip. Best meal ever. I was informed that the food I made for sister and her guests was a huge hit, and was asked for recipes of certain dishes, all of which I DECLINED to give, because I am a meanie. Then I watched A Muppet Christmas Carol and Elf, then put up my 20 foot tall inflatable Santa in the yard, which is always a herculean task, and switched our bedding from thanksgiving to Christmas themed sheets and comforter. I am glad its over and I can fully immerse myself in Christmas cheerfulness without getting tiresome side eye and snide comments from fuddy duddies.

Bright orange carrot dip is so lovely looking, and you know I'll try just about anything. Cumin and bananas are a hard no. No. They do not like each other. Really bad idea. No.