Thanksgiving Dinner

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was responsible for cooking Thanksgiving dinner for our family. I pretty much stuck with the planned menu - a traditional theme, with local flavor.

The turkey was done kalua style in the oven. Click here for a copy of the recipe.


To make the cranberry relish, I used fresh cranberries, sugar, crushed pineapple, a mixture of pecan and macadamia that I candied myself, and li hing powder. It's garnished with a couple of orange slices.


The yams were baked in sugar and covered with marshmallow. I dusted the top of the whole thing with cinnamon and li hing powder.


Here's a picture of my kim chee cornbread stuffing. It's made of onion, carrot, celery, fresh thyme and sage, butter, beer, kim chee, Zippy's cornbread, vegetable stock, and salt. Garnish is just a few sage leaves.


Instead of mashed potatoes, I went with garlic infused mashed Okinawan Sweet Potato. This is one of the simpler dishes, made with just potato, salt, butter, cream, and garlic.


Here's the picture of the full spread. You'll see some green beans in there. Those were marinated in a garlic-ponzu sauce and pan fried. They aren't much to look at, which is why I skipped the picture.


Here's the far end of the table. I shredded the turkey and served the white and dark meats separately. The gravy was also homemade: turkey gizzards, onion, carrot, celery, crystallized ginger, beer, shoyu, thyme, water, and cornstarch.


For dessert, I made a pumpkin haupia crunch. It's actually a combination of two recipes: pumpkin crunch from a coworker and haupia topping from @konaish.