Second Thanksgiving!

Pam and I decided to have a Second Thanksgiving. We kept it simple, and made a small menu of simple but delicious things. The turkey was a lemon herb turkey with a lemony gravy. We made a rosemary fennel stuffing and green beans with toasted walnuts and a dried cherry vinaigrette. There were fennel mashed potatoes along with that, and for dessert, the most delicious apple tart.

I woke up early and started cooking! I de-crusted two loaves of rosemary bread, and cut it up into cubes. I toasted the crusts until they were very crisp, and processed them into bread crumbs for another meal. I sprinkled butter and oil over the bread cubes and toasted them into some delicious looking croutons!

A turkey that my mother sent was watching over all the cooking and making sure everything went well. After I finished the croutons, I made the fennel, raisin, and shallot mixture that they would be combined with before being put in the oven to turn into stuffing! Then I worked on the apple tart. I wanted the apple tart to be done before the turkey went into the oven, so that it would have all day to cool! It came out of the oven looking beautiful.

The coolest part about this tart is there are no spices. You make the crust, you spread apples inside, you brush with butter, and you sprinkle a little sugar on top. Then, you take the cores and peels from the apples, simmer them in sugar water until you have a thick syrup, and you brush that on top when the tart comes out of the oven. It was a surprise to realize how spiced most apple tarts or pies are. They usually have so much sugar and cinnamon that you can't taste the apple much at all. This tart just radiated a sweet apple flavor and I really loved it.

The turkey then went into the oven, and spent all day roasting. Fennel mashed potatoes were made, stuffing was created, and the little turkey watched over all of the ingredients.

The turkey came out of the oven a lot sooner than we expected.

The herbs in the lemon butter that I spread underneath the skin made it look moldy! We prepared our table, and sat down to eat!


Even Navi was licking her chops!


Then she tried the stare solemly strategy!


Don't worry. Of course she got some in the end!!


We were all very satisfied with Second Thanksgiving.