A New York Thanksgiving

It's probably a little late to update you on our Thanksgiving holiday, but it really was a time to remember! Despite working in the tiniest kitchen imaginable, Brian and Jess cooked up what the critics—Mom and Papa Barnett—are calling the best, most organized dinner ever. Before we begin, we'd like to thank Mom and Dad Moseley for the pots and pans, the ladies at the Greene County Courthouse for the roaster, Denise Rhoads and family for the CorningWare, Scott Rohling and family for the Pyrex, and Shondo and Ellie Miller for the bread plate! Oh . . . and Lindy Barnett for the most AMAZING garlic press is the world!

Instead of roasting a turkey all day, we opted to roast a stuffed pork loin for 60 minutes. We began by butterflying the loin, pounding it flat, stuffing it with homemade dressing, and rolling it tight.


To ensure that the meat would remain succulent after high-temp roasting we seared it first. Notice that the pan is a bit small for a 5lb loin, and the look on Brian's face tells you how difficult it was to turn!


We basted the loin every 10 minutes with a mixture of raspberry jam, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. The result was divine and the traditional Thanksgiving turkey has officially been replaced in our family tradition.


Brian debuted in the kitchen this year with his new specialty: garlic smashed potatoes. He even woke up extra early on Thursday morning to roast the garlic himself!


The green beans, sauteed with onion, garlic, balsamic vinegar, and almonds, were back for a third year.


Replacing the yams this year was carrots sauteed in butter with parsley. Jess loved them! But the yams will likely return by popular demand next year.


The sweet-n-sour cranberry, raspberry, and Merlot relish returned to the table once more, and it really tastes better on pork than on turkey anyway!


Back and better than ever this year was Jess's cornbread stuffing with sausage and apples. The secret is to let the stuffing "marinate" for 2–24 hours in equal amounts of chicken broth and half-and-half! The cornbread comes out extra moist and really takes on the flavors of the apples, onion, fresh sage and thyme. Mmm . . .


New this year was a salad "first course," which Jess promptly demoted to just another side dish as she couldn't wait for the real meal! The arugula, radicchio, and frisée salad—inspired by the salad bar at Whole Foods Grocery—is tossed with golden raisins, fresh pears, toasted walnuts, and green onion in a light and sweet vinaigrette. (That last sentence sounded pretty pretentious . . . oh well . . . the salad was damn good!)


The finished product looked like this:


And the guests of honor looked like this . . . talk later, eat first:


We forgot to take pictures of the dessert pies :( But let it be known that Brian made the most FANTASTIC homemade vanilla ice cream! We do, however, have a picture of our favorite seasonal treat: Smutty's Pumpkin Ale. Ahh . . . Thanksgiving! Cheers, friends!