Thanksgiving Dinner Plans

For Thanksgiving dinner this year, I 'm thinking of focusing on the use of locally harvested ingredients and other ingredients acquired from family owned vendors. To this end, I have gathered and processed my own black walnuts from our yard full of black walnut trees. I plan to use these in homemade maple ice cream. I plan to flavor the ice cream using Maple Syrup from Bragg Farm in Vermont. The syrup was given to me by a friend, Bryan Pfeiffer, who is a friend of the Braggs, and helps them out with their syrup production every year.

I'll make an apple pie using the apples we picked from Stuckey Farm, a wonderful u-pick operation in Lebanon, Indiana. If we really get into the spirit, we'll make our own butter for the piecrust from cream I get from a local creamery.

The stuffing wil be seasoned with sage, parsley and other herbs from our garden. We'll have roasted yellow fleshed and sweet potatoes with garlic, olive oil , sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and rosemary, also from the garden.

The corn pudding will use corn purchased from Stuckey's farm - frozen fresh straight from the farm, and eggs from our own flock of pullets . They have recently started laying and it is wonderful to have fresh eggs available again.

That's about all the local ingredients I'll be able to rustle up this year, but I've put in 4 red currantbushes this year and I hope that next year, we'll have enough currents to add to our cranberry sauce. Hopefully next year, we'll also have enough red raspberries to make a nice raspberry shrub as our accompanying beverage.

As for the bird, if I can, I'll find a fresh one from a local farm that won't break the bank. If not, I'll have to resort to a supermarket bird. Happy eating all!