Thanksgiving for Four

Another delicious Thanksgiving at the D. house. A meal full of love and care, served to the best company in the world: my family.

My mom, my sister, and I started preparing at around noon, as usual. There were potatoes to be scrubbed, asparagus to be washed, green beans to be blanched, onions to be roasted, cornbread to be crumbled and turned into stuffing, biscuits to be formed, Cornish hens to be dressed, pie to be made, and so very much more.

This year we managed to plan things well enough that we finished early, and dinner was served at around 5:30pm or so (normally we plan for 6pm or 6:30).

My dad opened up a bottle of white wine, and we all sat down to feast together. The wine we had was a Chester Gap Cellars Petit Manseng 2009, a bold sweet white wine. It was aromatic and had a bright acidity that balanced the sweetness of the wine. (Chester Gap is a small vineyard in Front Royal, Virginia.)

For the meal, we had chestnut soup with whipped cream (lightly sweetened and salted) to start. Buttermilk biscuits with rosemary and thyme accompanied.
Then we dug into some delicious cranberry relish and some roasted onions stuffed with cornbread "stuffing" flavored with caramelized onions and sage. We enjoyed some pesto potatoes with asparagus and green beans. And of course, there was the star of the night: the rosemary Cornish game hens I told you about, with my mother's delicious sticky rice stuffing.

After some clean up, we settled down on the couch for our traditional post-feast movie. At around 8:30, having digested some of our dinner, we paused the movie and came back to the dining room table for the finale: dessert: This year, we finished our Thanksgiving meal with a beautiful Cranberry Pecan Tart. It was quickly devoured, as you can see below. I barely had time to snap some decent pictures.

Recipes (and more pictures) coming soon!