Thanksgiving Dinner, local style

I apologize for this post being a week late, but things have been a tad busy in the Eisner-Lafferty household as of late. But I finally had a chance to sit down and upload our photos from Thanksgiving to flickr, so here they are!

This year Rich and I made our own Thanksgiving dinner at home, complete with turkey, gravy, stuffing, veggies, bread, and a delicious dessert. Instead of planning a specific menu, we instead decided to pick up a small amount of pre-cooked turkey with gravy and a box of stuffing mix, and then go to the local farmer’s market to select local vegetables.

For $6, I managed to get a head of purple cauliflower, two large bunches of green onions, carrots, and four small bell peppers. We also had a pile of baby red potatoes that Rich had picked up from another market vendor earlier in the week. Anyhow, I made sure to buy only from vendors who clearly indicated where their produce was from, and chose only things that were either locally grown, or at least grown in Ontario. Just look how pretty everything looked:

I also picked up some Art-Is-In bread (locally owned and baked!) and two delicious maple and pecan tarts from Aux Délices Bakery. With both bread and dessert handled for us, we only had to roast the veggies (we decided to just use the cauliflower and carrots, and save the rest for other meals during the week), mash some potatoes, mix together and heat up the stuffing, and re-heat the turkey. Very easy and far less time consuming than your typical Thanksgiving feast, yet just as delicious and filling!

Roasting the veggies was very simple. Just chop them into approximately 1 inch pieces, and place each veggie onto a rimmed cookie sheet (or shallow large baking pan) lined with parchment paper or tin foil. Liberally coat with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, mixing to make sure everything is evenly distributed. Stick into an oven heated to 475° F. About half way through the cooking time, stir them to make sure they roast evenly. The carrots take about 15 minutes, the cauliflower took about 20 or 25 minutes.

The entire table of treats, set and ready to eat:

Delicious roasted carrots and mashed potatoes:

Roasted purple cauliflower:

And those pretty maple tarts:

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!