Thanksgiving Preparations

Last year I was unable to use the solar oven for any of the Thanksgiving cooking due to cloudy weather. Today is different. It is a beautiful clear, albeit a little chilly, day outside. Both solar ovens are set up and working. In the SunOven is a large stockpot full of carrots, celery, onions, parsley, and seasonings to make the stock for tomorrow's meal. This stock will go into the cornbread stuffing and will be the base for my delicious turkeyless gravy.

The feast will be wonderful tomorrow but we still have to eat today. I'm using the Tulsi oven to steam potatoes and carrots, and will soon put out some brown rice, for tonight's curry dinner. There's an eggplant in the refrigerator picked from our own garden that will join some onion and the steamed vegetables. If I feel energetic, I may also make a spicy spinach-type dish using some of the turnip greens from last week's CSA share. To round out the meal, we'll choose from an abundance of homemade condiments: preserved lemons, sweet spicy lemon pickles, spicy tomato chutney, and pomegranate chutney.

In an effort to make tomorrow's meal a little bit less work, I am eliminating the usual yam dish. All of us enjoy the yams, but they really aren't necessary with the spread on the table. I also decided to forgo making a pumpkin pie from scratch. It's a considerable amount of work to produce a vegan, no-fat-added, tofuless pumpkin pie and I'm just not up to it this year. My mother-in-law isn't a pumpkin pie fan anyway, so she won't miss it. Thinking that we would, I picked up a small vegan pumpkin pie from Whole Foods and my sweetie and I already finished it off. Unfortunately, it was bland and disappointing, especially considering the steep price. My recipe goes heavier on the spices, yielding a better flavor.

To minimize shopping for produce other than what came in the CSA share, I also am opting to substitute chard for the green beans. I'll steam them and season them the same way I do the beans - with salt, sugar, and a dash of Liquid Smoke. I am, of course, making a huge batch of mashed potatoes. It's not that I expect everyone to load up on spuds; it's more to ensure I have enough left over to make samosas again.

If the weather cooperates tomorrow, I plan to steam the chard and the potatoes in the solar oven. I haven't decided yet whether to try baking the cornbread stuffing outside. I'm not sure it would crisp up well enough if cooked at a lower temperature (~250 in the Tulsi instead of 350 inside). Maybe I'll try cooking half of it outside so I will know for next year but bake half inside to eliminate the risk to not having the best stuffing for dinner.

Thanksgiving is, of course, not just about the food (although the food is darn good!) We are looking forward to visiting with my sweetie's mother. I am grateful to have a good mother-in-law and a great husband. (The dogs aren't half bad, either.) I also appreciate all the wonderful people in the blogging community who have become a part of my life whether they are aware of that or not. It has been a treat to meet several bloggers in person and I'm thrilled that one more will be coming my way within a few weeks.

Thank you to all who read what I write. Thank you to those who take the time to share your thoughts in the comments. And thank you to those of you who share of yourselves in your own blogs.