Foodbuzz 24×24: Thanksgiving for Two

As most of you know, Eric and I moved from Florida to Virginia at the beginning of the year. While we really like Virginia, it’s twice as far away from our family than Florida was. Two fourteen hour car trips in less than a month just wasn’t feasible, so we decided to stay here for Thanksgiving and spend Christmas in Alabama. I don’t know about you, but in my family, the Thanksgiving meal never varies from year to year. While there’s nothing wrong with that, I figured why not change things up a bit? After all, we would need something exciting to do on Thanksgiving Day. I thought it would be fun to create a menu that had our favorite Thanksgiving dishes, but with a twist.

The Menu:
Appetizers – Capricho de Cabra cheese with sea salt crackers and Pan Fried Almonds with Thyme
Main Course – Herb Roasted Turkey Breast
Sides – Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans with Walnuts and Lemon Vinaigrette, Chorizo Stuffing, Bubble Top Brioche Rolls
Wine – Veritas Cabernet Franc
Dessert – Pumpkin Tiramisu

We made these almonds for Friendsgiving, a party we had before Thanksgiving. They disappeared in no time, so we decided to make more to snack on while cooking our Thanksgiving meal. We also had Capricho de Cabra, which is an incredibly smooth Spanish goat cheese. Perhaps our favorite discovery since moving to Virginia is its abundance of wine growing regions.  This medium-bodied cabernet franc from Veritas paired perfectly with our meal.

These Bubble Top Brioche Rolls were the most delicious rolls I’ve ever made. They were so soft and buttery. I think the Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes were my favorite side dish ever. Eric, who normally isn’t even a fan of sweet potatoes, absolutely loved these. Instead of a heavy green bean casserole, I opted to make a lighter green bean dish. These are tossed in a lemon vinaigrette and topped with toasted walnuts.

Eric said this was the best roasted turkey he’s ever had, but my dad’s fried turkey is still his favorite. I loved the way the herbs looked when the turkey breasts were cut and how their flavors really seeped into the turkey. The chorizo and brioche stuffing was a nice change from traditional stuffing. Since I was already making brioche rolls, I used half the dough to make a loaf to use in the stuffing.

This pumpkin tiramisu tasted sort of like a pumpkin spice latte. The original recipe called for the ladyfingers to be brushed with rum, but I couldn’t resist drowning them in espresso.

It took about 2 seconds for Rabb to steal my seat once I got up to start cleaning.

We don’t normally give Abby any type of human food, but I couldn’t resist the cute face she was making while Eric was carving the turkey. Once we finished our dinner, I got a tiny piece of turkey to give her. She was quite willing to do tricks for it, too.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen her roll over so quickly!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!