28 Nov
Thanksgiving 2011
This year was my first attempt at hosting Thanksgiving. We emailed some friends (they have a son the same age as ours, the husband is in business school, and the wife is one of my favorite people in the area (oh, and they just got back from Italy as well!)) and they agreed to come even though it would be a vegetarian affair. The husband was apparently very hesitant at first, but he agreed to give it a try.
After a bit of debating back and forth, I decided to go with butternut squash lasagna as the main course. I needed something rich and heavy to make up for the lack of meat. It was a huge hit, and the baby could not stuff the leftovers in his mouth fast enough. I wish I had taken a picture illustrating the layers of spinach roux, lasagna sheets, butternut squash slices, and cheese. Very pretty! This is the recipe I used, and since I have some leftover squash and herbs but no more lasagna noodles I’m going to attempt to turn this into a pasta this week.
When my sister was here, she showed me the easiest green bean recipe EVER.
Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to a pan. Snap off the end of your green beans and throw them in the pan, stirring until they turn bright green. Sprinkle a bit of salt/seasoning on top and pour vegetable broth on top (it can be chicken if you’re so inclined). I think I’ve been using about a half cup. Cook it down until the broth is gone and the beans are beginning to carmelize.
How did I not know about this before?
This is called Vadouvan Mac N’ Cheese, and I’m hoping the author (it’s a book I’m going to be reviewing soon) will let me share the recipe here, because it is a winner. I plan to impress guests with this dish for many years to come.
I used REALLY BIG elbow shaped noodles because they hold more cheese that way. 
Our friend brought a few things, including this butternut squash soup with pumpkin and cream cheese. Anyone who uses cream cheese liberally is more than welcome to share diner with us as often as they please.
I splurged on flowers for the table, and used a piece of fabric with ragged edges I picked up from Joann’s once.
The babies wore matching Ikea bibs (if you have a toddler and you don’t have these, get some).
That orange blob in the background? Mashed potatoes with sweet potato and cream cheese. See what I mean about the cream cheese? They brought pumpkin roll too, which is a childhood favorite of mine (and best eaten from the freezer if you didn’t know).
Dessert was the aforementioned pumpkin roll, along with my first apple pie (crisp). I used another recipe from the cookbook I mentioned above, but it wasn’t the grand finale I was hoping for. The crisp part overpowered the apple part. Maybe I didn’t use enough apples? I did find a whole wheat crust that I plan on using as my go-to pie crust from now on.
It was a lot of work, but I loved it all (especially the part when That Husband didn’t allow me to do any of the clean-up, letting me lounge around and digest while watching TV instead). I’m looking forward to hosting Thanksgiving in the future. As long as we can find more friends willing to go turkey-free on Turkey Day.
At the table we went around and said one thing we frivolous thing we are thankful for, and one deep thing we are thankful for.
My frivolous thing is my iphone. Deep down I know I could function without it, but superficially I can’t imagine how I would.
My deep thing is a husband with ambition and job security.
I am living an incredibly, deeply, overwhelmingly blessed life, better than I even imagined as a young girl. I spend time on my knees telling God how grateful I am for all of it, but it never feels like enough. What a lucky, lucky, lucky girl I am.
I'm a farm-raised almost-crunchy stroller-pushing picture-taking lifestyle-blog-writing gastronomy-obsessed divine-seeking thrift-store-combing cheese-inhaling pavement-pounding laughter-sprinkling lover of individuality and taking chances.
That looked fantastic! I try to change up Thanksgiving a meal a *tiny* bit - don’t like the same.exact.meal.every.year. If I were to eat at your house it would be a big change, but I would love it. The lasagna and green beans looked so good!!
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1Oh my gosh, this looks so delicious! Way better than the traditional Thanksgiving meal. I’ll have to try that butternut lasagna!
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2I ate “thanksgiving dinner” in a mediocre restaurant in Dalat, Vietnam this year with two Brits. I told them all about Thanksgiving and made them say what they were thankful for, to their great amusement.
Then I skyped in on Thanksgiving dinner at home and cried a bit.
Looks like you guys have the starts of a beautiful tradition!
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Jenna Reply:
November 28th, 2011 at 11:48 am
Oh goody! You’re spending time in Vietnam. I was hoping you would (and that you will blog about it
).
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Your meal looks delicious and I’m anxious to try the green bean recipe.
One question; later on when you establish yourselves in a city with more friends etc.; would you consider allowing a free range, non antibiotic turkey if someone else made and brought it to your home?
This is what I do now. We make most of the food, save for the turkey, which is brought by friends.
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Jenna Reply:
November 28th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Oh for sure! In fact we’d like to buy one ourselves one day, but they are really expensive and we didn’t want to spend that much money right now. We actually offered to let our friends bring their own turkey if they preferred to do so, but they were willing to try something different.
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kate Reply:
November 28th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Cool! That’s awesome.
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And now I’m drooling all over again. Everything looks delicious! I go turkey free too and don’t feel I’m missing out in the least bit!
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5It’s still a bit hard for me to understand when people are hesitant about something as simple as trying a meat free dinner. Although, I suppose when it’s Thanksgiving dinner, and you’re used to the turkey being the main event, it is understandable…
I guess I’m more thinking about people I know who act like it’s a terrible hardship to “endure” one single meal without meat. I’m a very laid back vegetarian- I support hunting, humane meat, if someone messes up and I have meat on my dish I’ll eat it so it doesn’t go to waste if it’s not, like, a huge hunk (that would make my stomach upset)- but even I still can’t resist an eye roll when someone balks at, say, coming with me to a vegetarian restaurant.
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Jenna Reply:
November 28th, 2011 at 8:21 pm
Oh I know, it’s pretty frustrating. And sadly, very limiting. There are so many different types of vegetables and fruits and grains and such that you are missing out on when you limit yourself so severely.
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My boys love butternut squash-I’ll have to make that lasagna soon!
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7I don’t think I’ve ever commented on your blog before, but I’ve followed it here and there ever since a friend of mine linked to it a little over a year ago. It was fun to see that you live in my old neighborhood! We must have moved out right before you moved to Chicago. We lived at the Picadilly. I miss HP and HP Ward. It’s fun now to see some of my old friends showing up in your posts…I know your Thanksgiving guests.
Hope you enjoy it there and all the city has to offer! And all your food looks so yummy!
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8I finally got around to reading this post and it looks like it a was great success! Have to try out that lasagna. . .
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