Thanksgiving Feast…Provider Style!

Drum Roll Please! Prepare to be Dazzled!

OK! Provider Outdoors Staffer, Jen Cordaro raised the bar this year with a commitment to make her Thanksgiving Feast from as many foraged, hunted and homegrown ingredients as possible. Here was the final menu:

Relish tray/Appetizers:

• Homemade sweet dill pickles

• Goat cheese stuffed roselle flowers with garden chives

• Wild duck confit

• Wild duck sausage

• Homemade garden watermelon rind pickles

• Wild dried persimmons

• An assortment of local olives, nuts and cheeses

• Homegrown yellow cherry tomatoes

Main:

• Homegrown smoked turkey

• Wild pheasant with wild juniper salt and homegrown rosemary and sage

• Jellied cranberry sauce made with wild elderberry and Madrone bark

• Wild black bear sage sausage stuffing with pine nuts, tart cherries and crab apples

• Homemade molasses acorn flour rolls with curly dock seed

• Smoked sweet potatoes

• Wild Candy Cap mushroom compound butter

• Yams from a can with marshmallows (🤢) because my husband HAD to have them…

• Mashed potatoes with wild morel and porcini mushroom gravy

• Roasted brussels sprouts with homemade olive oil

• Pear and pomegranate spring mix salad with local brie cheese and maple syrup balsamic vinaigrette

Dessert:

• Homemade pumpkin pie with acorn crust

• Wild elderberry hand pies

• Homemade whip cream

Rustic tablescape:

• Foraged acorns, wooden bowl

• Pheasant feathers, hunted

• Eucalyptus swag, foraged

• Wild persimmons

• Deer antler candle holders, handmade by my husband

“I’m looking forward to building on this menu for future years to incorporate more wildness. Overall, this slow food took a long time to make with foraging, prepping flour, dehydrating mushrooms/fruits/seeds, etc. but it was so, so worth it! I love the connection to food and to serving family and friends with my hands and creativity. I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday.”