Wherever you are celebrating and whomever you are celebrating with, Thanksgiving is a foodie’s dream celebration. All the Thanksgiving tables I’ve eaten around focus on sweet foods. The most interesting thing I’ve witnessed on a Thanksgiving table is sweet potato with a piped, baked, marshmallow topping, served not as a dessert but with the main. Americans tend to do really interesting things with sprouts, shave them, roast them, mix them with a whole load of other stuff. Rather than our tradition of over cooking them until they’re grey and soggy.
Thanksgiving is the chance to mix things up a little bit and try things a bit different from what we eat in the UK. Yes, it’s close to Christmas and yes we’ll be eating turkey for days next month. But this year we should all celebrate thanksgiving, just because, why not?
I always resort to my trusty kitchen friend www.smittenkitchen.com I’ve read her blogs, her recipes, her musings on what works and what doesn’t work, for years. Her recipes are fail safe, they’re easy to follow. She feels like my kitchen friend. When I’m cooking for friends, something I dearly miss, this is mainly where the idea will come from. She’s American, it makes me try different things, like this cranberry pie with pecan crumble topping. Never would I cook with cranberries other than to make a cranberry sauce for the Christmas table, but this makes me feel like I am going to try this for our Thanksgiving dinner.
It was here that I found the best apple pie recipe I’ve ever made. Traditionally I know you’re not meant to say that your own cooking is good. But folks, all I did was follow the recipe and viola, it was amazing.
I challenge you to find a Smitten Kitchen recipe and give it a try this weekend, or have a think about doing a Thanksgiving dinner. It might just be the change you need to get in the kitchen and rattle some pans, to break the week up a bit.
Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.