Our Healthy Nourishing Traditions Thanksgiving Menu – The Results

So how did our healthy and nutritious menu turn out?  As you know, I was trying a lot of new dishes that were from Nourishing Traditions.  Here’s the complete run down on our meal.

Turkey – Great!

Onion Cranberry Compote – NT pg.392 (this was to replace the sugary cranberry relish I normally make and love!) This tasted very good by itself, but when I had it with my turkey, it just wasn’t the same as having the sweet/tart taste of cranberry relish.  You could definitely taste the onions.

Mashed Potatoes (was going to make NT recipe on pg.401 but couldn’t find celery root at the store) – Great!

Sweet Potato Puree – NT pg. 406 – Good – Maybe try adding a pinch of nutmeg or some similar spice next time.

Ginger Carrots – NT pg.95 (NT recommends a lacto-fermented side to aid in digestion if everything else that you’re serving is cooked) – AWFUL!  This was so salty, it was not edible.  I didn’t use whey but substituted it for 1T salt as was recommended in the recipe.

Baby Spinach Salad – NT pg.178 – Excellent! – Roquefort cheese was recommended in the recipe but it was much too expensive, so I substituted bleu cheese.

Whole Wheat Rolls – How can you go wrong with bread unless you overcook them… which I did a little. 🙂

Desserts:

Pumpkin Pie – NT pg.562 I used a pumpkin from our garden instead of the pumpkin puree they call for in the recipe but I was not real excited about this.  A few of the children really liked it but I’d give it a pass next time.  It just wasn’t full of flavor and didn’t have enough sweetness for my liking.

Whole Pecan Tart – NT pg.563 – I love pecan pie but this one didn’t live up to my expectations.  Just like the pumpking, it didn’t have enough flavor or enough sweetness for anybody’s liking.  (It’s all gone – the kids polished it off yesterday, but I don’t think they’d want a repeat.)

Vanilla ice cream – NT pg.550 – I couldn’t find my mix!  I looked and looked in my refrigerators but couldn’t find it… so I used some leftover Dairy Queen mix we had.

Persimmon ice cream – NT pg.552 – Good – this is something I would make again, except I would want to add some spices that complement persimmons to give it more flavor.

This post is getting rather lengthy, so I will write up about the rest of our day in Part II.