Harvest Dinner 2008For the past decade or so, at least since my Mom passed away, Jack and I usually travel to the LA area to attend Thanksgiving dinner at the home of one his relatives, usually one of his sisters. This means that for several years I did not have the pleasure of preparing and hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner celebration in my own home with my family and friends. It also meant that I did not get to make the traditional foods for Thanksgiving the way my own family did or the foods that I had learned to make as a young woman when I was married (both long ago).
So a few years ago I started the tradition of having what I call our annual
Harvest Dinner celebration in the comfort and relaxation of my own home, with my friends and family, with my traditional foods, served on my favorite plates, with my festive tablecloth, using my serving dishes, my decorations etc etc. In other words, Harvest Dinner is Thanksgiving
my way.
Here is our Harvest Dinner invitation that we gave to our family and friends:
The 3 of us invite you to share in our annual Harvest Dinner. It’s our way of celebrating our abundance and to give thanks to the earth, our loved ones and our universe (spirit). Sort of like traditional Thanksgiving, but not on Thanksgiving Day.I like to include a moment or two before we begin eating the feast of food to express our thankfulness for all of the abundance that we have. Some would call this moment of thanks a prayer or the traditonal grace that is said to give thanks for our meal, but I mean it to be much more than mere gratitude for the food. This moment of acknowledgement for our great abundance, is meant to bring into our consciousness how fortunate we are to have not only an abundance of food on our table, but also our great abundance in many other areas of lives. We have homes, health, safety, freedom, friends, family, and most of all we have love. So as we raised our wine glasses to toast a Happy Harvest, we thanked each other for being being here, Mother Earth for our abundant harvest, and Spirit for guiding us each day. Then we dug into the mounds of food on our plates.
Some years I have printed out this grace that I found in one of my Mom's books long ago, and we have made it a part of our Harvest Dinner thankfulness moment. I do not know who the author is:
This is a time for giving thanks
This is a time for remembrance
Let us remember our past and
Give thanks for what we have become
Let us be present in the present and
Give thanks for the here and now
Let us remember our future and
Give thanks for all that is to happen to us
Let us give thanks for the whole universe
Especially for our creation
And the life that is in us
Let us give thanks for that consummation of all things
Which Spirit is working out in us
May light and love surround us
And guide us to right action
I think it is a lovely, although lengthy sentiment.
Anyway, I wanted to share our most recent Harvest Dinner with you. We usually have it on a Sunday afternoon about two weeks before Thanksgiving. We had our 2008 dinner last Sunday, November 16th.
Here's the menu:
2008 Harvest Dinner Menu
AppetizersBaby Carrots & Celery
Mixed Nuts
Olives
Goat Cheese & Crackers
Main Course
Free Range Turkey
Greek Stuffing
Bread Stuffing Casserole
Cornbread Pudding
Mashed Potatoes
Turkey Gravy
Pineapple-Orange Sweet Potatoes
Fresh Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce
Jellied Cranberry Sauce
Desserts
Apple Pie & Sugarless Apple Pie– both by Bob
Pecan Pie – by Jen
Pumpkin Pie – by Jack
Whipped Cream
I got lots of photos of the food, but absolutely none of us or our guests! We invited Bob's parents and a close friend of the family to make us 6 for dinner. Just the right amount of people to fit around my dining table.
So what follows here are the photos of our food feast with no pictures of any people or pets! Oh well, I guess I was totally focused on getting the food prepared and on the table for everyone.
Harvest Dinner Dining TableThat tablecloth was made by me 15 years ago for a Thanksgiving dinner I hosted in my little condo in Southern California, long before I moved to the mountains and my rural life. I still love the tablecloth and its rich colors.
Buffet Table set up in my kitchenWe served the food buffet style on a portable table set up in my kitchen. Everyone filled their own plate with whatever they desired from the buffet setup. I find this is the easiest way to serve the food because all of that food would never fit on my dining room table. This also eliminates the need for everyone passing heavy hot serving dishes around the table. It limits spillage and other dining "disasters".
The roasted turkey before being carvedI try to buy naturally raised hormone and antibiotic free turkeys when I cook turkey. I find that I like the way they taste better, and I feel better about buying a turkey that was raised without chemicals. This one was a
Diestel Farms brand turkey. That's the brand I usually buy.
On our buffet table there was:
Roasted Turkey ~ light and dark meat
Pineapple Orange Fresh Sweet Potatoes
Bob's Famous Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Turkey Gravy ~ photo taken while gravy was cooking
My Mom's Greek Chestnut Stuffing
Cornbread Pudding ~ made this year by Jack
Bread Stuffing ~ Mrs. Cubbison's with my "doctoring up"
Fresh Whole Berry Cranberry SauceBob's parents brought some flaky dinner biscuits that were wonderful, but I failed to get a picture of them. Trust me, they were good.
And then after dinner we had pie! Errr...make that pies. Plural.
Jack's creamy Pumpkin Pie
Jack tried a new filling recipe this year that used real cream instead of evaporated milk. It was a richer pumpkin than I have had before.
Bob's Sugarless Apple on the left, and regular Apple on the rightBoth apple pies were great. I couldn't even tell the difference between the sugarless and the one with sugar in it.
My Pecan Pie ~ tasted great even if the crust is uglyWell, that's it for this year. The turkey and all the leftovers are long gone by the time I am writing this post. Maybe next year I'll get a photo or two of the people as well as the food!
Happy Harvest everyone! And Happy Thanksgiving!
© Copyright 2008 Mountain Harvest Basket
