When it comes to feasts, there’s always going to be rich (read: unhealthy) food. When we’ve done Friendsgiving (Thanksgiving with friends), even with planning on who is going to bring what, there’s always bound to be at least five different desserts on the table.
I find the taste palette of Thanksgiving to be salty (turkey, green bean casserole), sweet (cornbread, pumpkin pie), and soft (mash potatoes, pumpkin pie again, cranberry sauce). There’s a little bit of tang with the cranberry sauce, but I don’t like cranberry sauce.
In past potlucks, I’ve always been the person to bring in a “fresh” dish. It could be something simple such as a vegetable plate with hummus and ranch dip. It could be a vegetable tian, another simple dish where the vegetables are sliced, seasoned with salt and pepper and oil, and baked. When you bring a vegetable dish, you become the Healthy Food Hero at the party because it is likely you’ll be the ONLY person bringing a vegetable dish. After all the salty, sweet, and soft Thanksgiving staples, they’re eyeballing these vegetables. Also, I guarantee you’ll leave your feast with an empty dish because everyone wants some vegetables on the side of their turkey.
This year for my mom’s house I made a fresh fruit tart. I was hoping to experiment with passionfruit and make a passionfruit curd pie but I did not. Maybe I will try next month. Dealing with BIL #2 moving in has kept me busy. Well…more like busy in a way where I feel I’ve been cleaning more *sigh*. It does not help that I am also cleaning up after my 13-month old kid.
I decided to keep my contribution simple. I picked up this recipe from Mimi Thorrison’s French Country Cooking. All it is is puff pastry, a mascarpone-based fresh cream, honey, figs, and almonds on top. I went to several grocery stores and found no figs. It looks like they’re out of season. So I went for the next available thing which are a mix of strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Though berries are more a summertime fruit, they’re available year-round in LA. I could not think of another fig substitute so I went the safe route with berries. I also have persimmons on hand in my fridge, but I did not feel like experimenting.
Eat, Play, Live 
Happy belated Thanksgiving! We don’t have Thanksgiving here in Australia but it’s so nice to see what others gets up to on this holiday. The fresh fruit tart turned out great! So much fresh fruit on top. There’s always time for dessert and tart, the sweet treats people look forwards at the end of the meal 🙂
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Does Australia have something similar? I recall there was an Australia day…When I was in college I lived in a building where the majority of the occupants were international students. I learned about it from one of the neighbors.
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Australia doesn’t have something similar to Thanksgiving. We do have Australia Day but that is more like a national day kind of celebration (like your Fourth of July). I’d say Christmas and Easter are probably the holidays here where you stop everything and get together.
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Hi, Julie – I’m ususally the one to bring the ‘fresh dish’ as well. Your fresh fruit tart looks absolutely amazing!
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What “fresh dishes” do you usually bring?
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