Canadian Thanksgiving Archives - Small Barrels Magazine

A small but memorable Thanksgiving celebration

This October, Winnipeg’s Peasant Cookery did a beautiful job with their special takeout Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. Truly, it was just as special as homemade. This beautifully prepared multi-item feast would be a great option to order any year. But with celebrations on a (much) smaller scale in 2020, being able to enjoy a meal just as sumptuous as if the whole family had brought their favourites to share was good for the spirit. Well done, Chef Melissa and the Peasant Panty/Peasant Cookery team!

Sides and main prepped and ready for the oven

Pre-ordered dinners were available for delivery or pickup throughout the Thanksgiving weekend with quantities tailored to the number of guests, from 2 to 6 people. We pre-ordered online on Thursday, and arranged pick up for Saturday afternoon – a quick and easy process. The more-than-complete Thanksgiving Dinner package included turkey, gravy and more sides than I have ever seen at one holiday sitting! Everything was made from scratch with a cornucopia of fresh, local ingredients.

Generous portions, quality ingredients (not pictured: housemade cranberry sauce)

The meal included sliced Manitoba Grade A turkey (white and dark meat), a sherry pan jus, a beet salad with arugula, puffed wild rice and seed blend and caramelized honey vinaigrette and goat cheese mousse (outstanding!), maple ginger bourbon glazed yams, buttermilk mashed potatoes, honey dill roasted heirloom carrots, sweet and sour meatballs, house-made cranberry sauce, and a scrumptious bread dressing with artisan bread, sage and brown butter, carrot, celery onion and garlic. Special mention must be made about the perfectly spiced pumpkin pie with in-house roasted local pumpkins and a delectable vanilla chantilly cream.

Peasant Beet Salad with beets, puffed wild rice, seeds, caramelized honey vinaigrette and goat mousse

Besides the pie, our very favourite items were the beet salad and maple ginger bourbon glazed yams. Chef Melissa has such a flair when it comes to using warming autumnal spices – those yams were out of this world! Everything was delectable and portions were generous.

Perfect pumpkin pie made with local in-house roasted pumpkins

All items were chilled, pre-cooked and packaged separately with reheating instructions. Within about an hour of oven time, we were sitting down to give thanks over a gourmet meal – and more treats than we would have prepared for just for two.

Takeout items packaged and labeled with reheating instructions

There was an option to add a wine from Peasant Pantry’s selection, a further convenience to round out the meal. We decided to go with something from our own cellar, Kelley Fox’s 2015 Maresh Vineyard Pinot Noir. Such an elegant wine to smell and taste and see with its ripe red fruit colour – a great pairing with a Thanksgiving Feast!

Quantities and prices were based on number of guests; for two, this very complete dinner was $65 ($125 for 4 and $180 for 6). For the obvious quality and care in preparation, generous portions, and the easy convenience of this special dinner package, we found the prices to be extremely reasonable.

We had special motivation this year to seek out a takeout option. But we would certainly do it again. The food and the experience was simply that good. Thank you Peasant Pantry for helping to provide a Happy Thanksgiving!

Peasant Cookery’s “Peasant Pantry” is located at 283 Bannatyne Avenue in Winnipeg, Manitoba. For more information on their pick up and takeaway options, visit www.peasantpantry.store or call (204) 989-7700.

Bountiful Thanksgiving decor in the dining room lobby

The Post Hotel is a lovely place to spend and celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. The holiday falls on the second Monday in October, but many families celebrate with a bountiful Turkey Dinner on the Sunday. This tradition is upheld beautifully in the dining room at the Post for all of their guests, which on that evening swelled to include many Calgary and Banff-area residents gathering in large, multi-generational family groups and for a delicious dinner.

While the full menu is still available, a luscious, multi-course Thanksgiving meal, crowned of course by a golden roast turkey, was the star of our recent visit this past October. Pop the champagne with us (make it an elegant, sparkling Billecart-Salmon for this special occasion…)

…and first feast your eyes on the menu:

Thanksgiving Dinner Menu at the Post Hotel, Sunday October 7, 2018

The wine lovers’ dilemma with almost any tasting or multi-course meal is what to pair with all the variety. Glancing at the menu you’ll see that we had a trout tartar, strudel, and turkey- with-gravy riddle to solve. The Billecart-Salmon completed the first piece of the puzzle, complementing the amazingly luscious tartar which was matched perfectly with a sharp-sweet-creamy honey mustard coulis. The photo doesn’t lie – the portion was very generous.

The second course was also a fine partner for the champagne. The strudel filling was a blend of finely-chopped rich and earthy mushrooms wrapped in delicate, buttery phyllo pastry. The red cabbage foam didn’t photograph particularly well (looks a bit like blueberry yogurt) but it was prettier in person and very good with the strudel. The shiny golden ball on the left is the apple jelly – delicate, tart and sweet, and refreshing.

At this point in the meal, our wine was poured – a 2012 Patz Hall Pinot Noir. It had a clear red, purple colour characteristic of the grape, and a smooth, elegant taste. The only red to match roast turkey in my experience. (The wine went well with my last few bites of strudel as well…good timing!)

And here it is – Happy Thanksgiving, Turkey dinner is served!

Turkey Dinner, like nowhere else... — Turkey Dinner, like nowhere else…

I have had wonderful homemade turkey meals over the years always prepared by loving hands, and nothing can quite replace the ambience of that special family gathering. But I must say that this meal was outstanding. The white and dark meat morsels of turkey were moist, tender and…just what turkey should always be. The cornucopia of ingredients in the stuffing – chicken, bison, fuji apple, chestnuts, sourdough pretzel bread, to name a few – made for an impressive accompaniment. The turkey port wine sauce was a rich pool of gravy, the kind you encourage everything on your plate to touch and sop up. (And while I admit to eating and enjoying the canned stuff, the spiced cranberry chutney was out-of-this-world – so good!). Even the brussel sprouts and carmelized cubes of sweet potato were perfect.

Apologies – we don’t have a shot of the lovely dessert (must be that Turkey/Tryptophan effect). It was a Pumpkin Mousse with Ginger-Pecan cookie, maple whipped cream and orange/cranberry compote – but like all Post desserts, it was delicious and generous.

The meal may not have been ‘homemade’, but it was certainly made with loving care. The many families surrounding us, clearly engaged in a yearly tradition, confirmed that this is a wonderful place to celebrate the holiday.

While I’m sure we now have you dreaming of visiting the Post Hotel in October, it should be noted that the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in October is also the last weekend the hotel and dining room is open before a five-week closure as staff prepares for the busy winter ski season. So, our suggestion is to aim to spend a few crisp, early-October days in the Rockies at the Post, ending a great stay with a spectacular Thanksgiving dinner you won’t soon forget.

For more information on dining at the Post Hotel or to view a dinner menu, please visit www.posthotel.com

A Thanksgiving Feast – Elegant Takeout from Peasant Pantry

Review of Thanksgiving Dinner at the Post Hotel – Lake Louise, Alberta