Canadian Thanksgiving

We’ve added a Canadian to our urban family and she holds a Thanksgiving feast each year – Canadian Thanksgiving is mid-October and she has her dinner at Labour Weekend, so off we went last night (man, 3rd night out in a row, feeling very tired and grainy today!) It was pot-luck which I just can’t remember doing for ages and ages so we picked carefully – something that we know we can make, something to feed 13 people, something with a kiwi touch and something orange or could be served in an orange dish in order to make an orange impression on our new friends. Yep, you guessed it – Mother’s Kumara & Orange Bake in the big orange casserole dish!

Finally got the knack of the mandolin for slicing the kumara – it’s a rather dangerous utensil for one to loose one’s temper with (… ahem …) and ever since it bit The Mister last year there’s no way I’m going to let it get the better of me so that I have to pass it over to him because I don’t want him to get hurt again! But I was on a roll yesterday – must’ve been more than a hundred slices of kumara!

Actually we have to admit it turned out great! We thought it might have a bit much cream in it but it was cooked perfectly and rested for about 45 mins after cooking because we had to wrestle the searing hot dish into a sturdy bag and transport it along Cuba Mall to the dinner venue. So all the cream was nicely soaked up before we served it. Everyone was so impressed and there were mumblings of ‘Wow, who made this? It’s SOOOO good.’ Yaaay!

It’s Mother’s recipe from the Awakeri Community Complex Cookbook 1998! Check it out.

So now we turn our attention to our 4th Thanksgiving dinner in late November. Each year it gets a bit bigger, I think this year will be too, so even though we love the idea of everyone around the table we might have to go for the buffet and sit where you can approach. Here are last year’s photos for a trip down memory lane – prep time and dinner time.