A Different Take On Thanksgiving
3.45 stars*
Thanksgiving in our family was, as it was for many of us, quite different this year. Our family decided not to travel. Since it was only going to be our immediate family, we felt that some of the pressure to have a traditional meal was alleviated. It did not seem to make sense to make a whole turkey for just the few of us, so I decided to make a lamb roast instead. We are fortunate that it we have a kosher grocery store nearby that sells a wide variety of meats. The full menu is listed below. I have included links to recipes that can be found online. You can read about changes that I made in my review below. The sweet potato pudding, which was a special request from Big Baby is a recipe that came from a friend, and I am unable to share it. Trust me. It’s amazing.
The Menu:
1st Course:
Butternut Squash Bisque: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/55451/butternut-squash-bisque/
Fruit Salad
Main Course:
Lam Shoulder Roast: https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/roast-lamb-with-rosemary-garlic
Rice Pilaf: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/29940/asparagus-cashew-rice-pilaf/
Sweet Potato Pudding with Raisins
Cranberry Jelly: 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, 1 package cranberries. A classic.
Steamed Asparagus
French Bread: From the Cuisinart bread machine cookbook
Dessert:
Apple Pie: From the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book
Big Baby Says:
Taste: 10
Texture: 8
Healthfulness: 5
Ingredient accessibility: 5
Difficulty (lower is harder): 3
Average 6.2
The first course of this delicious meal was a fruit salad. It was a tasty fruit salad. Next was the main course. We had a nice lamb roast with sides of rice pilaf, homemade bread, cranberry sauce and sweet potato pudding. The lamb was perfectly done. It was a lovely shade of pink. The lamb was also very juicy. The pilaf was tasty and had a great buttery taste. The cranberry sauce was perfectly tart and had just enough sweetness. The sweet potato pudding was very sweet and tasted delicious. The homemade bread was also nice and crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Finally we had dessert, a divine apple pie. The apple pie was very scrumptious.
It took 2 days to prepare so it was defiantly a very tough meal to make.
Some parts of the meal were healthy but most weren’t.
The ingredients were not very accessible but we found them.
This meal is a very good special occasion meal.
Mama Foodie Says:
Taste: 10
Texture: 8
Healthfullness: 6
Accessibility: 7
Difficulty 7
Average: 7.6
I will start with difficulty. This meal was very difficult to classify. We usually review only one recipe, but there are many recipes that go together to make even a reduced holiday meal like this one. Most of the recipes were fairly easy to prepare. I will say, however, that this meal took a full two days to prepare. I prepared the soup, pie, cranberry jelly, and the pumpkin bread (which was not part of the menu but was requested as a special Thanksgiving breakfast by Big Baby) on Wednesday. The rest, I prepared on Thursday. I should note that because we keep kosher, I did substitute margarine for butter and coconut milk for milk or heavy cream in the recipes linked here.
One of the biggest hits of the meal was the rice pilaf. I almost omitted the noodles in the recipe, but I am so glad I did not. I was afraid that this dish would lose something when I used margarine instead of butter, but it did not. We used earth balance margarine, and the flavor was delicious. My advice with this dish is to not overcook the asparagus. The crunch that is added by the asparagus and the cashews really adds something to the texture of this dish. It did have quite a bit of margarine, so it brings down the overall healthfulness score.
The lamb roast is another family favorite in our house. It is surprisingly simple to prepare, but provides a very flavorful centerpiece to the meal. I mostly followed the directions for the recipe, but I did make some changes. Before I coated the roast with the spices, I cut slits into the meat and inserted whole cloves of garlic in about a dozen places around the meat. The cut of lamb I had was a shoulder roast. I added about 2 T of olive oil to the garlic and rosemary rub. Rather than cook at 450 degrees, I preheated the oven to 450, then reduced the heat to 350 when I put the lamb in and cooked for about 20 minutes per pound. The boys said it was perfect, but I would have preferred it cooked to medium rather than medium rare. I am really enjoying the leftovers.
The sweet potato pudding is a recipe from a life-long friend of my mother. I have been enjoying it at Thanksgiving dinner since I was a teenager. It is very sweet and rich enough to be a dessert on its own. Is it healthy? Nope. Not at all. But delicious, absolutely.
The butternut squash bisque was a big hit among those who tried it. Big Baby does not care for creamy soups, so he gave it the pass. I often like a curried butternut squash soup, but this one has a much more delicate flavor. Just a hint of nutmeg. I do advise preparing it a day ahead of time in order to give the flavors time to blend. The coconut milk is thick and creamy enough to mimic the texture of heavy cream. This soup was very tasty, but it is another item for the less healthy column.
I must admit that I used a ready-made frozen pie crust for the pie. I know that it isn’t that hard to make homemade pie crust, but to be honest, there just isn’t enough bang for the buck for me in that department. It is enough that I make my own pie filling. I used granny smith apples. I accidentally forgot to put the margarine in the pie filling before I added the top crust, but the pie was still delicious.
All in all, it was a quiet but tasty holiday meal. I tried to make it more festive by putting out our favorite crystal glasses, a new tablecloth and some candles. We took our time over dinner and enjoyed each other’s company as much as we enjoyed the food. We acknowledged that we have much to be thankful for this year, even as we couldn’t be with our loved ones. We ate too much, we talked and laughed, and then we cleaned up and prepared ourselves for a few days of leftovers.
Bonus Recipe Link: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/9217/super-moist-pumpkin-bread/
*Our rating system combines the ratings for all of the different aspects to the recipes or meals. A score of 3.45 does not reflect the overall rating for this meal. If you were to rate this meal based on flavor and quality of food alone, we both agree it should receive 5 stars.