Thanksgiving at Cornerstone Farm

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year at Cornerstone Farm again.
We are just posting the dishes we made, no pictures this time. Since we had so much to make we didn't feel like taking the time to take pictures of everything too!

The Salad Ian made with some lettuce greens from the garden at Cornerstone and a delicious creamy dressing he made from local bacon and its drippings, garlic, fresh thyme, parsley and sage from the garden, raw egg, and feta cheese that Bethany had made.
The Stuffing Lauren made with her homemade sourdough bread, their pork sausage, and homemade broth.
The Chicken, Lamb, and Gravy Brandon and Lauren made. The chicken (from Cornerstone) was roasted and stuffed with some of Lauren's stuffing. The lamb/mutton was from a sheep that was raised at Cornerstone. Brandon made an incredible rich gravy sauce from the roasted lamb drippings which he reduced down a lot to make into almost a syrup consistency that was so good!
The Cassoulet Brandon made was delicious. With beans and either sausage or lamb, or both, it was amazing.
The Mashed Potatoes Bethany made with potatoes from Cornerstone, her homemade fromage blanc, milk, and butter.
The Roasted Winter Squash Jeanette made with local squash Lauren had brought over. The squash was chopped into small pieces and tossed with maple syrup, a little olive oil, and fresh sage from the garden.
The Green Bean Casserole Jeanette made from the November 2011 Food Network Magazine recipe.
We used fresh green beans, raw milk from Cornerstone, and cheddar cheese that Bethany had made.
The Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Pomegranate and Hazelnuts Bethany made from the November 2011 Food Network Magazine recipe.
The Molasses Biscuits Bethany made from the November 2011 Food Network Magazine as well. They were delicious!
The Sweet Potato Biscuits Jeanette made from the November 2011 Food Network Magazine were really yummy too. We used pumpkin instead of sweet potato since we had enough left over from a pumpkin that had been cooked from the garden at Cornerstone which had been for the Pumpkin Cheesecake we were making.
The Cranberry Sauce Bethany made. She added some cherries that had been grown at Cornerstone, maple syrup, and cinnamon sticks to add some spice!

Dessert:
The Pecan-Butter Scotch Pie Lauren made following a recipe out of the November 2011 Food Network Magazine. She substituted maple syrup instead of using corn syrup in the recipe. We served it with homemade raw whipped cream.
The Pumpkin Cheesecake we made was from the November 2011 Bon Appetit Magazine. Bethany made the filling using ricotta that she had made earlier and the fromage blanc she had made as well instead of mascarpone. The pumpkin, as I mentioned above, was from the garden at Cornerstone. Jeanette made the crust which was a delicious homemade gingersnap cookie crust!

Jeanette's Birthday

To celebrate Jeanette's birthday, we spent the day in Olympia cooking, eating, and planning for Thanksgiving, which was later that same week!  Jeanette picked out everything we made, choosing things that sounded particularly good to her or that she's been wanting to make for a while.
Since Bethany was driving down that morning and we had a lot planned for the day, Jeanette made breakfast the night before so it was all ready for us to just enjoy that morning.  The recipe was from the book 'a passion for Baking' and is called Rougemont Apple Pastry Cake.

Of course, we made fresh raw whipped cream to have with the cake! 

And now for dinner:

The salad we made was Escarole and Bacon Salad from the November 2011 Food Network Magazine.  We substituted prosciutto for the bacon, and used romaine lettuce in place of the escarole.

Using a couple different cuts of lamb from Cornerstone, we made Braised Lamb with Almonds & Mint from the November 2011 Bon Appetit.



As a side dish we had Spice-Roasted Cauliflower and Jerusalem Artichokes from the November 2011 Food Network Magazine

The Jerusalem artichokes and chives were from Cornerstone as well, and they were delicious!

Lastly, to go with dinner, we made Thyme Gougeres (October 2011 Bon Appetit)

We replaced the Gruyere with homemade raw cheddar from the Cornerstone Dairy, and used thyme from the garden at Cornerstone too!

All the flavors went really well together and complimented one another--it was a great dinner!

Last but not least...dessert!

This Toasted Nut Tart from the November 2011 Bon Appetit was a delicious twist on pecan pie, and the homemade, raw pistachio ice cream put it over the top!

We left out the pine nuts and used maple syrup instead of corn syrup--the filling was rich, but sooo good!

Free!

We were able to put this dinner and dessert together without needing to buy anything!  We just used things that we both already had and made a few small substitutions if needed.

Now that Cornerstone has a dairy cow, there have been lots of fresh, raw dairy products available for us to use--one of them is real buttermilk, which is the byproduct of making cultured butter.  When we saw the recipe in the October 2011 Bon Appetit magazine for Buttermilk Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Waffles, we thought it would be a great thing to make with chicken raised at Cornerstone and buttermilk from the Jersey cow, Tess!

The garlic and herbs were from Cornerstone as well, and we used a combination of pork fat and coconut oil to fry the chicken in.

Chicken and waffles was something we hadn't tried before, but the combination of the slightly sweet waffles with homemade butter and maple syrup, and the spiced chicken with hot sauce was actually really good!

In order to use some of the winter greens, such as kale and swiss chard, growing abundantly at Cornerstone, we made Creamed Collard Greens from the November 2011 Bon Appetit, using the greens we had available in place of the collard greens.

Of course the milk and cream were from Tess, and we used smoked bacon from La Biondo Farm on Vashon.

We also made a simple green salad with Cornerstone greens and a maple-mustard vinaigrette, and Brandon and Lauren made polenta with delicious homemade stock.

For dessert we had To Die For Banana Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting from Tasty Kitchen.

We almost had to buy one banana to be able to make this cake, since Luke saw the bananas on the counter and had one for a snack!  But there just happened to be one over-ripe banana left at Cafe Luna that Bethany was able to grab as she was leaving work :)

This post is far overdue...this meal was made in the end of October...so there are a few more to come that will hopefully be up soon!