Thanksgiving Dinner

Somehow, we still had room for dinner. One of the highlights of the evening was the eggplant (classic Thanksgiving dish, yes?). We ended up with eggplant simply because we wanted to try a new vegetable. It was one of our best decisions--the only downside was figuring out what to do with the leftover miso. The boy was in charge of making the "paste", and he got it done quickly and efficiently. The eggplant turned out marvelous. I used to be scared of eggplant, but now I know the trick: get the skinny ones, or Japanese eggplants, and leave the big fat ones alone. A whole lotta eggplant (1/4 of the recipe) is 115 calories.

Another popular dish was the cider-scalloped potatoes (pictured top-center in the photo below). Delicious, simple, and one of the few things that actually needed the oven. I think--and this is a hard sell--that I actually preferred it over classic mashed potatoes. That is saying a lot for me, because I am addicted to those things. Also, these clock in at 140 calories a serving, but while there are 8 servings in the dish, I have no idea how big they are.

On the left in the below photo is my Maryland-famous dill bread (family recipe), and on the right is rabbit with wild herbs. While the rabbit was totally delicious, it was also one of the more time consuming recipes of the day, and we all agreed that it probably isn't worth doing again.

Another easy vegetable was present: slices of tomato, topped with mozzarella and basil, and drizzled with balsamic vinegar. A little "light" for thanksgiving, but delicious and classic nonetheless. Also, incredibly easy to prepare, which is a huge plus.

Our second meat for the evening (we always do two meats) "had" to be turkey, according to my rather put-upon father.Well, he had his way, but my style. We whipped up some turkey with blueberry pan sauce, which is one of the boy and my favorite easy dishes. It doesn't take that much work, all things considered, and has the lovely pan sauce in place of traditional gravy. The nicest part is definitely the tangy-sweet blueberry sauce--it adds complexity to an otherwise straightforward dish! One serving (3 ounces turkey, some sauce) is 215 calories.