Happy Thanksgiving

What a busy long weekend! A wedding on Saturday night, last night a wonderful gluten-free Thanksgiving dinner prepared by my mom and this evening Jason and I cooked a huge chicken for his family. Jason sharpened his carving knife in preparation:

 I decorated my red table kitchen:

I lucked out in the beautiful flower department! Jason brought me the orange plant on the left yesterday and the bouquet on the right came from his mom today:

 My mom made these colorful little chocolate autumn leaves to put on my table:

This picture is for everyone who doesn't understand what Jason and I do without cable television. Note the 2 chairs:

Check out the huge bird! Jason made his special rub... you'll have to ask him for the recipe. All I know is there's lots of oregano and garlic and it's delicious:

Now as for new recipes, I tried two and both were a success! First off, I found a great recipe for vegetarian gravy that I could easily adapt into a gluten-free/vegetarian gravy. Sadly, I cannot find the original source so don't give me credit for it! Here it is:

Easy Vegetarian Gravy
3 tablespoons margarine
2 tablespoons of finely chopped onions (I left this out for this batch, but will toss it in next time)
2 minced garlic cloves
3 tablespoons flour (gluten-free blend from planet organic)
2 tablespoons soy sauce (gluten-free)
1 cup water
salt and pepper

1 Put margarine in a pot and saute the onions and garlic over med-high heat.
2 Reduce heat back to medium after onions and garlic have become golden brown.
3 Make a roux by gradually adding the flour, while continuously stirring to avoid lumps.
4 Still stirring, add soy sauce and water to the mixture.
5 Add salt and pepper to taste.
6 Once the gravy has reached desired thickness, turn off the stove and you are done!

MY REVIEW: I loved this gravy! The one change I would absolutely make next time would be omitting the salt. Soy sauce has enough salt on its own. Other than that, this was fantastic. I served it to 2 vegetarians this weekend and both seemed to enjoy it. 

This next recipe was suggested to me by a friend and her raving reviews gave me the confidence to try it on this special occasion. Usually I'll try something on Jason first but I just went for it with this one and it turned out wonderfully. It's from the Best of Bridge cookbook but I found it on this blog. I forgot to take a picture of it when I served it with the sour cream and nutmeg so here's a picture of the leftovers!:

 Champagne Squash Soup
4lbs squash acorn or butternut (I used 2 acorn)
2 medium onions diced (I used 3 small white onions)
2 TBSP butter
1/4 cup of Champagne (I subbed white wine in here)
4-5 cups chicken broth
2 TBSP butter
1/2 tsp nutmeg
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup sour cream for garnish

Preheat oven to 350, line a cookie sheet with foil.
Quarter squash, cut out seeds, place skin side up & bake 1- 1 1/2 hours until squash is tender.
Cool. Scoop out pulp & puree.
Saute onions in 2 TBSP butter. Add champagne. Cook until liquid is absorbed, and onions are golden brown stirring often.
Puree onions in food processor with a little of the squash puree.
In large pot, combine onions, squash & broth. Cover & simmer stirring occasionally.
Whisk in 2 TBSP butter.
Season with nutmeg, salt & pepper.
Garnish with sour cream, using knife to swirl through soup.

MY REVIEW: Acorn squash has such a great flavor and it really shines in this soup. Since our blender is no longer functioning, we purchased a hand blender and it made this soup so easy. It was silky smooth!

JASON'S REVIEW: The soup was delicious. It tasted like golden acorn squashes bouncing off my taste-buds with just the right amount of spice.