Thanksgiving Feast

We celebrated Thanksgiving with our little family this year. My children didn't branch out much and Lizard only ate rolls and turkey and Little Bird ate rolls and sweet potatoes. Lizard has never liked potatoes, and Little Bird hasn't been a fan of meat lately. Normally I work harder to get them to eat, but not on a holiday.

Hubby and I liked everything (well, almost everything, hubby isn't a fan of sweet potatoes...more for me). This is the first year I didn't make rolls because the stuffing (or dressing) is chock full of bread and I didn't want my rolls competing. I told the family I would make rolls another night instead. 

 In hubby's family they always have sweet pickles with their Thanksgiving meal, and he requested we do that too. The mashed potatoes are made from Yukon Gold potatoes which is great because you don't have to peel them.

I went for savory sweet potatoes...baked with just a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.

The cranberry sauce is homemade and I tried something new using brown sugar and maple sugar instead of white sugar. It turned out really yummy.

I wanted something instead of green beans, but I'm not sure how to cook collard greens (they do that here). I decided to make a spinach salad which I call the California version of collard greens. It's spinach, walnuts and cranberries with a homemade honey vinaigrette.

The stuffing is made out of cubed bread (choose your favorite), sausage, cranberries, celery and apples. I found the recipe last year and it is amazing.

Dessert was a maple cheesecake with an oatmeal pecan crust. I think it captured the flavors of the season and I wanted to eat the entire cheesecake myself.