Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinners -- so much, in fact, that we started having Christmas dinner on Boxing Day to have more preparation time! With the delivery of our CSA order last night, I've begun mulling my menu for Sunday's meal. My "must have's" for Thanksgiving are dressing, boiled onions, squash, cranberry sauce and squash pie. We always have some sort of poultry, but I'm not a slave to the notion of turkey. My favorite year was the one where we ate duck instead -- so yummy! This year, we'll be thawing, brining and cooking an organic chicken raised by and purchased from a local farmer. These dishes evoke memories of dinners past, with family members here and those who are now gone. Thanksgiving dinner is a meal full of comfort foods.

My menu, thus far, is:

roast chicken gravy savory dressing mashed carrots boiled onions pickled beets kohlrabi slaw peas squash cranberry sauce squash pie apple pie

The only thing on that list not grown by a local farmer is the peas (love the PC frozen peas!), the savory in the dressing and the apples in the pie (both grown minutes from my parents' house!) -- the rest is well within the "100 km" radius and yummier because of it!

What are your Thanksgiving "must have's"?