Footie & Food

Busy week this week what with being invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with my American pals from work, polishing up a translation for the hotel Verchant website and freezing on a footie field this afternoon.

Actually, I wasn't initially freezing as the temperature in the thin sun was a dashing 17°C, but as the sun headed west and down, the temperature dropped accordingly to a chillier 14°C. As I was merely standing watching I got pretty cold.

Still, my hero played some good footie, his team won all their three matches and my son got to bring the cup home until Wednesday. Talk about proud... I had to wrap a blanket around me to warm myself up, and had a nice cuppa tea and a honey sandwich with lots of butter. I've since made a gratin of potatoes with cream and turkey stock so we have something good and hearty after such an (in)active day. It can go with the incredibly hearty soup I made on Wednesday with a billion different veggies, turkey stock and thinned with milk. It was another case of stuff the veggies to roast in the oven first, pour over the stock and back into the oven. The boys love it.

I had got the turkey stock out to make gravy for the Thanksgiving dinner as the bird was being grilled on a closed barbecue. As it was, I removed it from the freezer, made the soup and then forgot to take it for the dinner... ah...! Still, the grilled bird (specially ordered) was delicious with a lovely crunchy skin. We had it with mashed spuds, grilled endive and the most divine stuffing you've ever tasted. It had things like mussels, oysters, bread etc. in it. I must ask my pal for the recipe! Dessert was homemade pumpkin pie, made with a fresh pumpkin - no pie filling here... and a pear Speculoos crumble made by one of the other guests. We had some lovely wine, and despite that particular evening being the one the weather decided to show us just how much it could rain in a very short time, we had a great time!

Ah, time for an apéro... Cheers!