Thanksgiving from the garden, 2017

Preparing a garden pumpkin, November 2017

We hosted Thanksgiving here this year, with ourselves and another family, a total of four adults and three children.  It was my turn to cook the turkey, so our guests brought the vegetables;  I made a big batch of mashed garden potatoes as part of my contribution.

I also made a pumpkin pie using our own chicken's eggs, though not with the above pictured pumpkin (it went into a lovely pork and vegetable stew).  As mentioned previously, I was a bit disappointed in my pumpkins this year--late forming and small;  at least the flavor was good. 

Additionally there was a selection of our homebrew on offer:  last year's rhubarb wine and the two year old elderberry wine (though that vintage has been hit and miss--the bottle we opened ended up being a little too rough for drinking though fine for cooking).  It made for a very happy Thanksgiving!

About the festive bird:  while I bought one this year, I'm hoping that in years to come we can raise our own bird.  At the moment we have two big, meaty cockerels out back--both of which look like good eating!  But they are hopefully going to be breeding stock, as part of our goal in a self-sustaining flock, so we're not eating them just yet.  Perhaps next year we'll have half a dozen fat cockerels ready for eating.

It was a lovely meal, and I'm glad I could serve food from my own garden.