Monday, November 23, 2009

Thanksgiving Menu 2009

It's going to be slightly untraditional this year. DH does not like turkey, and I found a duck at a local market...ergo, duck will be the main course this year.

Since it's duck (does anyone make duck gravy?) I will be roasting vegetables in some of the duck fat: yellow turnip, yellow and orange carrots, yellow onions (do I sense a theme here?) and a few other things, I suppose. I am going to put some chicken stock in the roasting pan, and the duck will be stuffed with an orange, some cranberries, and an onion. I'll use the pan drippings to make a glaze, adding apple marmalade and port.

I also want to make a mushroom gratin. It's very rich. I saute crimini mushrooms in olive oil & butter, with thyme. Deglaze with white wine, and the result is piled into a gratin dish with cream and Parmesan cheese and baked. It's lush.

For something a little less decadent, we'll have green beans almondine, and I might make some kind of cranberry relish.

We'll have a light red wine, and homemade apple pie (already in the freezer). We have some gorgeous eggnog from a local dairy, and whiskey and cognac to add, if we wish. (I'll wish. DH probably won't.)

Also on a foodie note, someone on the jury (I am presently serving on a grand jury) asked for my recipe for chicken pot pie! I'll be writing that out for him tonight.

3 comments:

Abe Lucas said...

Sounds delish!

Have a great Thanksgiving, Eileen! :)

Batty said...

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! I've never heard of or made duck gravy, but I don't see why this shouldn't work. Hmmm. Ducks give off lots of fat and fairly little juice, but the fat is very flavorful.

Eileen said...

Instead of gravy, I made a reduction sauce with stock from the neck, cranberries, oranges, onion and rosemary. Plus a dollop of port...it was out of this world!

DH insisted that I write everything down in case I forgot about it. *snicker* And I did. It's in the recipe file now.