Thanksgiving

Mark and I hosted our families for Thanksgiving dinner this week. Here's what we prepared:

• Pastured turkey from West Wind Farms, purchased through MellowBellies. We brined it overnight and covered it in butter the day of. Roasted breast-side down for the first 30 minutes (at 450) and then turned breast-side up (at 350) until done. I made a compound butter with garlic, salt, pepper, and some dried herbs (rosemary, sage, etc). We used a stick and a half, but I think next time we don't need to use as much as it was really buttery. The majority of the butter was used in between the skin and the flesh, which kind of basted the turkey as it cooked.
• Braised greens from our CSA. Collards, swiss chard, and poc choi, braised with onions, garlic, and turnips. We visited the farm a few weeks ago for a dinner and this is how they prepared the greens.
  
• Scott Peacock's mac and cheese. I think it is from The Gift of Southern Cooking, but I just found it online.
  
• Mark's mashed potatoes and giblet gravy.
• Broiled green tomatoes.
  
• Corn syrup free pecan pie.
• Vegan pumpkin cheesecake with oatmeal crust. It was so good, you can't tell it's vegan. There is very little sugar in the filling, since most of the sweetener is from agave nectar. In the crust, I used coconut oil instead of applesauce. We put real whipped cream all over this.

There were some other things, and our families brought stuff, but now I'm tired of listing everything. The meal did contain a lot of butter, despite my efforts to make it kind of healthy. We did have several green things on the table, which pleased me.