Last year we had a huge group of friends come for a Thanksgiving potluck, but many of them had plans this year, so we ended up with just an intimate group. Our friends Gavyn and Eliana came with their friend Jason.
It was so fun to create a ton of fabulous dishes and then sit down and enjoy them with friends. Though it took me just about two whole days of cooking, it was worth the time. I have taken many recipes I have collected over the years and twisted some of them a little to make them more interesting. A true gem I came across this year was William-Sonoma Apple-Orange Cranberry Sauce! Seriously, you will NEVER do canned again if you try this. To tell you the truth, I never went back to canned even after just doing the cranberry recipe in the bag of cranberries . . . just throw a bag of cranberries, 2 cups of sugar, and two cups of water in a pot and boil . . defiantly worth the pot to have fresh sauce over canned. If you haven't liked cranberry sauce before, trust me, try it fresh . . SO much tastier than the can (especially the jelly kind, eek).
I made place cards from a Thanksgiving Clip-Art Place Cards template at marthastewart.com. To make food labels, I then altered a cropped image in Photoshop to make the space large enough to accommodate the longer food names. And finally I lengthened that image to make a menu. If only they would do all this work for me, lol. Oh well, glad I can manipulate things in Photoshop. (I will make these changes downloadable at the bottom of this post)
Anyway, I just wanted to share the deliciousness I CRAFTED this Thanksgiving . . here's a look (in the order of the menu):
I would have to say my favorite dish was the Bacon & Herb Ciabatta Dressing . . . . I have actually been altering a recipe from Jeremiah's Grandma I received a few years ago. (Also, the pilgrim figures on the table were CRAFTED by her as well). I never had the chance to meet her, she passed away before I joined the family, however her cooking legend lives on and inspires me in many ways. I have substituted the bakery bread crumbs for Ciabatta bread I dice and dehydrate myself. Then, I use fresh herbs rather then the dried ones her version calls for. This year, I added crumbled bacon, mostly because there was extra from the BLT Deviled Eggs. Also, I have substituted part of the amount of milk her recipe calls for with cream . . can't go wrong with that I think. Anyway, it has become a delicious dish I know we will keep making for years to come.
So here's the download for the altered Martha Steward Place Cards . . . . a blank menu and a tag with an enlarged text field.
