Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving!! I want to post what we had this year, because it was a bit untraditional and fed 5 people for dinner and lunch perfectly. There's no need to find creative and alternate ways to eat your turkey this year.

My parents drove up here from Santa Barbara and brought with them a pork roast marinated in a chipotle sauce. They also brought wine, a potato-sweet potato hash, and orange cranberry sauce. My brother brought a pumpkin and apple pie, and we made:

Baked Brussel Sprouts - I will post this family recipe later and soon.
Spinach and Apple Salad with Crispy Almonds
Pumpkin Pie (with no eggs or evaporated milk, the best pumpkin pie I've had yet) - this pie will be posted soon and will probably become my dish for our holiday potluck at work.
Bourbon Pecan Pie with chocolate drizzles - As most of the reviewers suggested, I also increased the amount of chocolate from 1/2 ounce to 1 ounce and would increase the pecans to a full cup or more. I hate store-bought crusts, so I made a homemade butter and shortening crust. The bourbon flavor was good, but make sure you buy good bourbon. I used Knob Creek Small Batch Bourbon. Next year, I will probably try an egg-less and corn syrup-less pecan pie from Heaven's Banquet and may try to incorporate the bourbon and chocolate into that recipe. We'll see!



Alternative Thanksgiving Vegetarian Main Dishes
Personally, I am not a fan of fake meat. I think you should either eat meat or not, and this is probably because I'm not a fan of processed foods. The fewer ingredients an ingredient contains, the better, in my opinion. So, when choosing a Thanksgiving main dish, I want to nourish my family and guests with food I've made from scratch with single, stable ingredients. For all the vegetarians out there, here are some vegetarian main courses we've had a lot of luck with in the past. Most Thanksgiving side dishes don't contain meat and are perfect as they are. Posts will come soon:

Wild Rice and Mushroom Brioche with Buttered Shallot and Wine Sauce
Mushroom and Caramelized-Shallot Strudel
Lasagna with Fall Vegetables, Gruyère, and Sage Béchamel

Other ideas can be found here:
Cooking Light and Southern Living Vegetarian Thanksgiving Menus - Full menus if you want it all laid out for you in advance.
In a Vegetarian Kitchen with Nava Atlas - Some great mix and match ideas with recipes included.
Fabulous Foods Thanksgiving - There are some great looking main dishes here.

When a Non-Vegetarian Cook Hosts a Vegetarian Guest - A great resource when you're not quite sure what to do when you've invited a vegetarian to your traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

All this information is a bit late for Thanksgiving planning this year, but I hope it will pop up again next year when we're not sure what to do! Again, Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Holidays!