A Cozy Friendsgiving
I love the “-ber” months –September, October, November, December– because it means hosting season has officially arrived. And my absolute favorite holiday to host is Thanksgiving! I’ve been hosting Thanksgiving at home for seven years in a row, and although its sounds bizarre, I think it may be my favorite day of the year: I get to cook and bake from 5 am to 7 pm, lay the table with special silverware and china, order flower arrangements, buy a new dress, and share a meal with my family.
Since I love it so much, it got me thinking: What if I could do two thanksgivings instead of one? Double the fun. Which is how I ended up hosting Friendsgiving this year for a small group of friends, and it’s safe to say it’s now a tradition I’ll be upholding every year!
Although I’m a traditional gal by heart, something I loved about Friendsgiving was how I was able to put a spin on classic Thanksgiving recipes, as well as test new ones I've been dying to try, without the pressure of the big day. So, without further ado, here’s everything I made, plus all the delicious dishes my friends brought:
A COZY THANKSGIVING - MENU
TO START,
Red wine
Brie with Italian truffle honey
Sun-dried tomato cream cheese dip
Mini gruyére and chive biscuits with whipped honey red pepper flake butter
MAINS & SIDES
Roast chicken with a dijon pan sauce
Classic mashed potatoes
French onion soup mac and cheese
Cornbread with whipped salted chive butter
Roasted carrots over a honey orange whipped ricotta
DESSERT
Pecan frangipane tart with vanilla ice cream
Dark chocolate crinkle cookies
Almond shortbread
Carrot cake
Roast chicken, dijon pan sauce, & classic mashed potatoes.
The perfect Friendsgiving, if you ask me.
Fresh-baked dark chocolate crinkle cookies
Because every dinner party needs a little bit of chocolate.
I hosted this dinner party at my building’s lounge/event room, which has a a bunch of couches, a fireplace, and a bar area. I decided to serve buffet style, arranging the different dishes on the counter, so each guest could serve herself and then grab a seat around the fireplace. This is how it looked:
To make it feel more Friendsgiving-y, the dress code was cozy-chic. So, knit dresses, sweaters with skirts, cute boots, tweed, etc! This really helped give the dinner a cozier look that reflected the Thanksgiving vibe. I also made sure to dim some lights and take some candles, to really make to feel like a fall night.
Since this all took a lot of planning ahead, I made sure to make my life easier by doing a few things in advance, like grocery shopping, dry-brining the turkey, etc, which you can see in part 1 of my Friendsgiving series:
Aaaaand, here’s how everything turned out the day of!
For this dinner, I didn't make a specific playlist, but rather used a “Thanksgiving Jazz” playlist that Spotify made for me, based on my tastes, I’ve linked it here, in case you want to bring a jazz-y, chic Thanksgiving vibe to your holiday celebrations this year:
It was definitely a Friendsgiving for the books! And the best part was seeing how much everyone loved the food. It really makes me the happiest to feel that people actually loved what I made, and this Friendsgiving, everyone went home with leftovers, thats was how much they loved the food (I’m not crying you are)!!! Here’s a peek at what aa standard plate of leftovers looked like:
There’s nothing I love more than feeding the people I love :’’) Okay, okay, it’s not the time to get sentimental. So, that was A Cozy Friendsgiving! One of my favorite dinner party ideas that will be returning to a screen near you next November! Now, it’s time to mentally prepare for Thanksgiving, aka the cooking olympics. See you in the next one, xoxo
