Thanksgiving Dinner #5

Hard to believe we’ve done Thanksgiving Dinner for our urban family 5 times now – it’s always a really long, tiring, often stressful and hot day of standing and cooking but everyone loves it so much and it’s so great having everyone together. Check out the same food and fact that everyone fit around the table that first year …

Yep, we made the same food this year as all other years after a slight period of alarm when we thought we might be faced with a tiny turkey after Moore Wilson’s informed us that due to the Christchurch earthquake we were victims of the Great Turkey Shortage 2010 (because a frozen turkey plant failure after the quake meant frozen stock had to be destroyed and replaced with fresh) and then when the turkey eventually did arrive it was a whopping 7kg-er which was the biggest we’ve had for not the biggest crowd we’ve had! Luckily it fitted in the bag and oven dish and we didn’t get any nasty hell’s kitchen moments due to it needing an extra half hour or so cooking (thanks to the trusty Edmonds cook book and the run-sheets and notes I’ve saved from every year with scribbles and recordings of timings and tidbits (like the purple cabbage panic of last year which thankfully wasn’t an issue this year!))

The menu for 2010:

Thanksgiving Dinner 2010

Spring rolls with citrus dipping sauce

Roast turkey with wild rice & cranberry stuffing
Homemade cranberry sauce
Kumara & orange gratin
Pumpkin, spinach & feta salad
Coleslaw

People seemed to go to extraordinary lengths to attend which was amazing: our Small Dark Friend starved herself all day to make room for turkey, Jiff ironed & wore a shirt with a collar, Lance missed out on going to the kids’ dance recital & new-to-the-urban-family Rocket Scientist & Mrs Jam-Off came from a family funeral. Yes you heard right, that’s Mrs Jam-Off … not so much of an ‘enemy’ after all 🙂

A few photos below or take a look at the Thanksgiving10 set on Flickr.

We got ready for the day and foraged and shopped at Moore Wilson’s

We peeled, chopped, cooked, stuffed, rolled, constructed and washed stuff all day

The family gathered and ate (some more than others … Jiff … check out his first helping!)

I love this photo of us all together – this is the reason we do it every year 🙂