A Seasonal Thanksgiving

 

Scenes from our locally-sourced seasonal Thanksgiving celebration!

 

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A Seasonal Thanksgiving:  Made in Minnesota

Thanksgiving, the time to “give thanks”, to celebrate the end of the growing season and showcase the harvest.  It really should be that simple, get rid of the gourmet food magazine and take inventory of what is local.

While speaking to my BFF Klone, trying to explain this post, it occurred to me that I’m not writing a cookbook, or even a recipe blog.  I’m promoting a lifestyle. Although I may include recipes that are a favorite, I’m more about how to take what you have and simply prepare it.  For inspiration, I use recipes on the web, or in my cookbook library, and adjust them to suit what I have on-hand.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, I spent my morning gathering local ingredients, my first stop was Iron Shoe Farm to pick up local products; Carla at Iron Shoe Farm has a large supply of locally sourced products. She procured some of my ingredients for Thanksgiving; turkey from Ferndale Market, Dairy from Autumnwood Farms, coffee from Folly Coffee, and hydroponic greens from Frisk Fra Boksen.

I also stumbled onto another farm, Thompson Family Farm MN that was open, they had pie pumpkins, parsnips, greens, radish, onions, and apples.  I am set to create our family Thanksgiving!

I came home and laid out all of the products I had available to create our meal. Last week I made my first ever Goat Feta, (more to come about that!) so excited to try that on our salad.  My pantry pickled items will be a great starter as will the last of the season radish bunch.

Here is the list of all the local products I used, along with The Mercantile products:

Alpha and Omega Farm

Canned pickled veggies, frozen green beans, goat milk feta, apple cider vinegar, sourdough starter & lard for the pie crust, raspberry vinegar, fresh thyme, parsley, sage and chives

Ferndale Market Turkey
Thompson Family Farm MN Radish, pie pumpkin, mixed greens, beets, apples, parsnips
Hayes Family Farm Red skinned potatoes
Rice Creek Farm Walnuts
Compost Guy Leeks
Autumnwoods Farms Dairy
Hope butter Butter
Strictly Mushrooms Shitake mushrooms
Sunrise Flour Mill All-purpose flour
Doubting Thomas Farms Oats
Smude Sunflower Oil Sunflower oil
The Mercantile Salt, pepper, sugar, spices, Wisconsin Cranberries

I spent my weekend before the big day doing as much prep as possible to make Thanksgiving easy and enjoyable. Sunday I prepped: cranberry sauce, fried leeks, cream and roux base for casserole, sourdough bread, apple pie crumble, roast pumpkin & beets, pie crust, herb vinaigrette, roasted walnuts. 

This made for a very relaxing Thanksgiving. I finished and bake the pies, spice rub and smoked the turkey, built the salad, assemble the green bean casserole, cook and mash the potatoes & parsnips, warm the bread, whip the cream and open the wine! What a day!

I’m thankful for each of the farmers, hands and tireless hard work to provide such amazing products.

Events At The Farm

We currently host events at the farm including goat yoga on Sundays and beginning in 2021 we’ll be open on Friday night for pizza! Our on-site gazebos are available for rental.