Our First Thanksgiving at Sunshower
Our First Thanksgiving at Sunshower
Thanksgiving 2013 was really fun - we had a big "friendsgiving" (with some family too!) at the farm with over 20 guests!
The day before, I had done a lot of the cooking - making TONS of greenbean casserole, four pies (french apple, berry, chocolate-pecan-bourbon and macadamia-nut-butterscotch-bourbon), prepping all of the veggies for stuffing, making deviled eggs etc.
Not an actual picture of my macadamia nut pie but this is what it looked like. Everyone loved this one so much that I will include the recipe at the bottom.
Once actual Thanksgiving came, I was able to sit back and leave it to the pros (Scott, Ryan and Connor - all who are all professional chefs) for the rest of the meal.
Scott and Ryan carving the pig
Instead of a turkey, for Thanksgiving this year we cooked a whole pig over a spit!
Ryan stuffing the pig and sewing it back up. We stuffed ours with apples, onions, lemon grass, lemon balm, lemon basil, sage, and pineapple sage
It was delicious! We are still eating it though - a whole pig is still a ton of food even if there are 22 people.
Emily and Ryan posing with the pig head
While the cooking was going on, there was football watched, bags and badminton played and plenty of appetizers being eaten and even more day drinking.
Appetizer table
Ashley's dad brought a keg which definitely puts him in the running for coolest dad.
Our drink supply.
Natasha, Katie, Sam (girl), Alyssa, Ashley and Amira also made a beautiful tablescape! It wasn't easy either because we didn't have enough matching anything (chairs, plates, tables, place mats, tablecloths... you get the idea).
Natasha, our resident photographer, took some beautiful pictures of their hard work.
We ate outside on the back deck and the night was perfect for it!
If you look close, you can see me inside setting up the buffet
Thank you everyone who came out and made it such a wonderful thanksgiving!
As promised - here is the recipe to the pie (adapted from this recipe)
Macadamia Nut Butterscotch Burbon Pie
makes 1 pie
Ingredients:
1 cup butterscotch chips chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups macademia nuts, roughly chopped
1/2 cup agave
1 cup brown sugar, packed
4 large eggs, slightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup bourbon
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 refrigerated or homemade pie crust, thawed
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
Spray a 9″ pie tin with nonstick spray. Drape your pie crust into your tin, letting it hang over the edges of the tin. Crimp the edges of the dough with your fingers then remove extra dough hanging over the side. Prick the bottom of the dough all over with a fork.
Scatter the roughly chopped macadamia nuts and butterscotch chips over the bottom of the pie dough. Set aside.
In a small pot over medium heat, combine the agave, brown sugar and bourbon. Bring to a boil, stir well, then remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
In a bowl, mix together the eggs, melted butter, vanilla and salt. SLOWLY drizzle hot syrup into the eggs, stirring continuously with a whisk while you drizzle. You must go very slow here or you risk cooking the eggs. Continue drizzling and whisking until the last of the syrup has been poured into the eggs. Pour this over the nuts and butterscotch chips in the pie.
Carefully place pie in the oven and bake for 1 hour. Top should be puffy and crust should be golden. Let cool for 1 hour before serving.
Time:
active time ~ 15 minutes
total time ~ 2.5 hours