Thanksgiving y'all!!

Never one to shy away from cooking for friends, laying on a big feast and drinking copious amounts of wine; I decided to celebrate Thanksgiving this year.
I invited my best girl friends around and decided on the menu..........against my better judgement I decided to follow most of the recipes to the letter....including the ones I thought sounded horrific!!
This is the menu I decided on:

Starters :
Stuffed Mushrooms on Balsamic Leaves

Mains and Sides:
Roast Chicken (No roast turkey.....thrifty remember! plus its Crimbo soon and we'll be overstuffed with Turkey)
Cornbread
Mac N Cheese
Candied Yams
Mashed Potato
Green Beans with Lemon and Garlic
Stuffing

Dessert:
Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream


Recipes:

Stuffed Mushrooms

One large field mushroom per person
Sweet Sausage (I use pork and apple or pork and carmelised onion...or just normal sausage and grate in half an apple) I'd say one sausage per mushroom. If small sausages use more.
1dsp worcestershire sauce
2tbsps Marsala wine or sherry
1 garlic clove crushed
a good handful of breadcrumbs
1 tbsp Parsley
Dressing:
Salad leaves
1 part olive oil
2 parts balsamic
1 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper
Method:
-  Preheat oven to 180degrees
-  Take off stalks of mushrooms and chop into small pieces, add this to all other ingredients. Use your hands to combine together.
- Place Mushrooms on baking try and fill hollow with sausage mixture
- Bake in oven for 30-40 minutes until sausage mixture is golden and sizzling, if smaller mushrooms it may only take 20-25
- mix dressing ingredients together and dress your salad leaves with it. Arrange mushrooms on top of leaves and serve.

Cornbread

5tbsps of unsalted butter
115g Cornmeal or Polenta
115g Plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
230ml Buttermilk
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp salt
Method:
- Preheat oven to 210degrees
- Melt the butter in the microwave for 15 second intervals until liquid and then leave to cool
- Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl
- Whisk the eggs and buttermilk together and add the melted butter
- Add to the dry mixture and stir to combine. Don't overmix.
- You can cook this in a loaf tin or square baking tin. However I decided to make Cornbread muffins so I popped the mixture into 12 muffin cases in a muffin tray and baked for around 15-20mins until golden.
- After trying the first batch they tasted a little 'bland' to me so I added chopped Jalapeño chilli's to the second batch. It was a slight improvement but I just don't think Cornbread is too my taste, but it was still nice to make!

Candied Yams

I must admit I was really worried about making this dish.....I just couldn't see how a high sugar dish could fit on a table of savoury products.....but I needn'tve! It was very strange but absolutely delish! Me and my friends couldn't stop ourselves mixing the savoury and sweet together. Really really nice!!
- 1 Yam (You can find these in African food shops or Asian Food Speciality Supermarkets) Peeled and sliced into rounds a few cms thick
- 200g Brown sugar
- 225g Melted butter
- A good handful of chopped up marshmallows...........yes marshmallows!!!
Method:
- Steam Yams for 20 mins until soft.
- Preheat oven to 200degrees
- Arrange yams in a greased baking dish
- mix together melted butter and sugar until combined and then pour all over the yams, use your hands to make sure everything is evenly coated. Top with the chopped up marshmallows
- Bake until yams are golden and marshmallows are melted

Green Beans with Lemon and Garlic

 

250g Green Beans
1 clove of garlic minced
1 lemon juiced
1tbsp Olive oil
Method:
- Cook Green Beans however you wish, I steamed mine until tender, around 8 mins.
- Pour over olive oil, garlic and lemon juice and mix and serve immediately whilst still warm. (although I still like it cold the next day in a salad!)

Pumpkin Pie

I wasn't sure whether to include this recipe.....the truth is....I HATE pumpking pie. None of the girls liked it either, its such a strange texture and taste and in my opinion not a pleasant culinary experience. However I will include it as no thanksgiving is complete without a pumpkin pie!

- 1 readymade sweet pastry case (You could make it yourself...however with all the other prep I had to do I went the lazy route!) ;)

- 150ml Maple syrup

- 1 tsp cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp ground ginger

- 1/2 tsp ground cloves

- 3tbsp golden rum (optional)

- 2 large eggs, beaten

- 150ml evaporated milk

Method:

- Preheat oven to 200degrees

- Mix all ingredients together and pour into the case

- Cook for 30-40 mins until the pumpkin mixture is set but still wobbly in the middle

- serve warm with whipped cream.

So the night was a success, great company, great wine and lots of food! I love making a big deal out of things, even making Turkey Hats for us all, and a tree of thanks! It was meant to be cheesy but after finishing it i'm glad we did it. We are going to add to it each year to see how our thanks have changed!

Here are a few more photos from the night! 

My Table Setting:

 Tree of thanks:

 The feast: