Thanks for Dinner

Just a long post about our meal the other night (Thanksgiving). We went to my mom's place and while she did the starters and all the side dishes, I brought the dessert and the main course.

Here's what we had:

Starters



For an appetizer, mom made this fabulous crostini with roasted eggplant, roasted red peppers and capers, splashed with a bit of salt and pepper and drizzled with olive oil...Pure Magic.



She served it with a tray of pickled peppers and olives. She made these pickled peppers from some of the miniature ones I grew in my garden this year:



These were served in the living room, and we tarried over them for quite some time, chatting and drinking wine.

Mains



I did the main course, which was a squash and bean stack with leeks and a cashew crumble crust. It was tasty, but I still have to tweak the flavors; I was a little disappointed in the squash layer being slightly bland. I'll do a separate post on how I put this together.



It did look nice though and went nicely with traditional sides, which brings me to the side dishes and overall effect:

Sides



The star of the side dishes was my mom's sweet and sour red cabbage...I could eat this stuff every day and never tire of it.



I decided to be merciful and not post individual pictures of all the sides, so here they all are: a golden beetroot and baby spinach salad with red onion, roast sweet potato (no sugary stuff), cranberry orange sauce, mashed potato, and a bread stuffing with walnuts and cranberries.

Here's the table laid out...what a spread!



Here's what it looked like moments before being devoured:



Afters are posted about here--we had vegan pie.

After all that, we looked through some old photo albums. Check out the glamor, here's my mom circa 1945:



And here are my mom and dad on their wedding day in 1945:



Taking a break from the glamor for a moment, here's a pic of my gooney brothers sometime back in the early 70's:



Finally, my maternal grandmother, circa 1912. She was a seamstress and sowed the clothes she's wearing in the photo, which has always "wowed" me.



We do have a lot to be thankful for, indeed.