For my first Thanksgiving as a Phoenix resident, one of my closest friends @dianev came to spend the long weekend with me. I dropped her off at the airport this morning at 5am so she could head back to SFO.
Originally, the plan was to go to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner, but the morning of, I woke up and just didn't feel like going to a restaurant. My stuff which was being shipped from the Bay Area arrived 3 days early, so I was able to get my new place all fixed up and homey. I was in the mood to just hang out at home with red wine, yummy nosh, and good convo with Diane.
Yay! Whole Foods was open
And thank goodness, not only was Whole Foods open, but they had a bunch of pre-made Thanksgiving foods which I could just personalize or heat up and throw in a bowl.
As for the food allergies, I tried to stick to my daily eating as possible, but some stuff just tastes better with butter, and I had to have cheese with wine as my cheese fix for the Quarter kinda thing. I did however manage to avoid eating any eggs.
Here was the menu for Thanksgiving day
Diane's flight arrived at 2pm, so we got to my place around 3pm and started off with some afternoon snackage of:
- Green grapes
- Edamame and Sweet Pepperdew hummus with crostini. Diane wanted to taste it since I blogged about my hummus recipe concoction.
- Assortment of green and black olives
- Pecan crusted Jalapeno cheese ball
- Red Truck Shiraz wine
Here are the pictures I took from my iPhone of all that yummy snackage.
Thanksgiving dinner:
- Apricot glazed turkey which sounded very Martha Stewart. I bought 1.75lbs from the pre-made deli counter. To re-heat, I put the turkey in a glass baking dish, added 3/4 cup of chicken broth, and then covered with aluminum foil and heated in the oven for 20 minutes at 350.
- Tossed mixed green & spinach salad with a balsamic vinaigrette
- Baked sweet potato topped with pecans caramelized in organic brown sugar and butter.
- More glasses of Red Truck Shiraz wine
- Vegan mushroom gravy. I got 1/2lb of the gravy from the pre-made deli counter. I thought this vegan gravy tasted better than their regular turkey gravy.
- 1 can of whole cranberry sauce
- Stuffing: Shiitake mushroom, walnut with sauteed garlic and onion. I've really been into shiitake mushrooms lately. The stuffing was probably my favorite dish of the whole meal.
- And my surprise twist of the evening, which was super easy to make, was Green Beans with ground Chorizo. I'll follow with the recipe tomorrow.
And for dessert, we noshed on vegan pumpkin pie. The whole meal took me an hour to prep and get on the table. I love it when cooking happens that fast!
Thanksgiving 2009 was really wonderful, and I was very happy that I got to spend my holiday with Diane. I have much to be grateful for :)
