I haven’t been this tired in a long time.

After a fabulous meal on Thursday, we came home on Friday and I promptly started cooking for our second Thanksgiving meal on Saturday.  I spent most Friday afternoon and evening and Saturday morning cooking, but I do think it turned out great.  I decided to cook a real vegetarian feast, one that did not involve Tofurkey but instead featured a lot of fantastic vegetable dishes.  I figured most of our family would be tired of turkey by Saturday, anyway.

THE MENU:

Cheese plate: Manchego with honey, Brie with Asian pears, and Blue Castello with figs

Roasted Red Pepper and Walnut Dip

Three Sisters Stew

Wild Rice Pilaf

Potato Pave

Creamed Spinach Gratin

Spinach Salad

Cranberry Sauce

Triple Berry Pie

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Squares

All in all, the feast went over fabulously.  I made a few old things and a few new things and, as is my wont, I tried something relatively spectacular that turned out pretty well.  The main dish was the Three Sisters Stew, which is a traditional dish with the Native American “three sisters”: squash, corn, and beans.

Three Sisters Stew cooking in the pot

The rice pilaf was a recipe from Martha, one of my muses.  I used half wild rice and half brown rice, which seemed to work really well.

wild rice pilaf with cranberries, pecans and golden raisins

The Spinach Gratin was amazing and the dish that went the fastest.  The adults absolutely loved it; the tween/teens not as much, but how can you expect a teen to eat spinach?  It went so fast that I didn’t get a photo of it.

Finally, the pièce de resistance.  I like to try one thing that’s a tad elaborate when I cook a meal, and I found this year’s contender while watching Martha: Thomas Keller’s Potato Pave.  You definitely do not want to try this recipe without a mandoline since it required stacking layer after layer of extremely thin slices of potato into a loaf pan, letting it chill and sit overnight, and then slicing this “loaf” into 1/2″ pieces and frying them in canola oil.  The result?  A beautiful stack of thin potatoes that’s crispy on the outside and deliciously creamy and soft on the inside.  Oh, did I happen to mention that this dish involves cream and butter, too?

slices of "loaf" waiting to be fried

a slice of pave fried to crispy perfection

We also had a simple spinach salad with cranberries and gorgonzola and balsamic dressing; steamed green beans; and warm baguette.  I also made homemade cranberry sauce, which for me is a kind of side dish, in spite of my husband’s repeated admonitions: “Cranberry sauce is a condiment.  I’m not even counting that as a dish.”  I personally like to eat it on the side, and several other people did too, so there.  It was yummy.

For dessert, I made a Blackberry Raspberry Pie, but I added blueberries, too, so I dubbed it “Triple Berry.”  And I made pumpkin chocolate chip squares, also courtesy of Martha, that are a staple at the holidays now because they are so. dang.  good.

Pumpkin Squares and Triple Berry Pie

I made both of these desserts because I expected that some people might not like one or the other.  Turns out pretty much every one had some of each, so the desserts went quickly.

All in all, a fabulous vegetarian feast.  And the composter got an amazing meal, too:

ready for the composter

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