Thanksgiving dinner

Since this is apparently now primarily a food blog, here is the Thanksgiving dinner we had this year. As you can see, it isn't the traditional turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. Some years we go to all that trouble, but more often we prefer to make something different. It is more fun, usually less work, and perhaps even a little bit healthy. This year, we had turkey-zucchini meatballs and sumac sauce from the Jerusalem cookbook. (Here is a slightly modified version from Simply Recipes, if you don't want to seek out the book. But you should at least get it from the library, since it is a beautiful book, as well as full of good recipes). The recipe calls them burgers, but I call them meatballs.  Either way, they are delicious, and the sauce is good enough to justify seeking out sumac. (You can order it from Penzey's, here.)

To accompany the turkey, I made acorn squash stuffed with black beans, corn, and broccoli from a recipe I found at the New York Times website. It was intended as a vegan main course, and I think it would definitely be good for that, but it was also a perfect side. It is very American too, with the squash, corn and beans. I left out the optional rice, since we made our own wild/brown rice as well. To round out the plate we had sweet potato biscuits brought by a friend.

I neglected to get a picture of the pumpkin cheesecake that we had for dessert. Too busy eating it. It also turned out really well. I used ginger snaps in place of the graham crackers in the crust, and they added just enough snap and flavor.

In short, we had a lovely meal, and I heartily recommend giving alternative menus a try for the holidays.