Working with Gourmands, 2007

For the past three years, the wonderful people that I work with and I have been holding a potluck in honour of Canadian Thanksgiving. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I work with some incredible cooks and bakers.

Last year, for the first time, I took photos of all the dishes and I decided to do the same thing this year.

Enjoy the bounty that was our Thanksgiving potluck!

Twice-baked Sweet Potatoes with Sage and Pecans. These were delicious! They were colourful, healthy and pretty to look at.

Green Salad with Vinaigrette. What’s a potluck without a lovely salad!

Couscous Salad. The more I eat couscous, the more I love it. This salad was refreshing and nutritious.

Roast Chicken. While it wasn’t homemade and my picture certainly doesn’t help matters, it was delicious!

Vegetable Lasagna.

This was so good! Filled with roast vegetables and ricotta, it was comforting just as lasagna should be.

Chicken Wings. These were a huge hit. We’re trying to get a recipe out of the cook so stay tuned.

Chocolate Cookies. I think we’ve decided to adopt these as our “official cookie” at work. They appear often and they’re delicious. They’re basically peanuts mixed with Rice Krispies and then covered in chocolate. But I warn you. They’re addictive!

Ratatouille Pasta. I think ratatouille has to be the dish of 2007. This pasta was comfort food at its best!

Green Beans and Tofu. For me, this was the dish of the potluck! While I can’t say I eat a lot of tofu, this dish used tofu in sheets, which is something I’ve never seen before. It was finished off with walnuts and red peppers. Delicious!

Veggie Chili. We have a number of vegetarians on staff so it’s nice that we always have lots of vegetarian options at our potlucks. This chili would, however, satisfy the heartiest of carnivores. It was fantastic!

White Bean and Barley Stew. Yum! I could curl under a blanket with a bowl of this stew!

Pecan Pie. What’s a Thanksgiving potluck without a delicious pecan pie. This one was like a huge, creamy butter tart!

Sour Cream Coffee Cake. We love our dessert and this cake was right up our alley. There’s nothing like a moist and sweet coffee cake!

Baklava. With all due respect to the other desserts, this was THE DESSERT at the potluck. Made by our resident Greek Goddess (you know who you are), we were fighting for the last piece.

Banana Bread with Skor Bits. As I mentioned above we like to eat so we actually kicked off the potluck first thing in the morning with this incredible banana bread, which was nice and warm. Slathered in butter, it was a great breakfast!

Grilled Vegetable and Goat Cheese Sandwiches. This was my contribution to the potluck. I bought some lovely focaccia and slathered it in homemade pesto. I then layered on grilled vegetables and hunks of goat cheese.

Unbelievably, I forgot to take a photograph of one of my favourite dishes at the party: Bacon-wrapped Water Chestnuts. I think I was so intent on eating one that I just forgot to take the picture. Fortunately, the chef who prepared these sent along the recipe for me to share with all of you.

Talk about being a lucky Cream Puff! Look at the amazing cooks that I work with!

Ciao!

Bacon-wrapped Water Chestnuts
Recipe courtesy of one awesome co-worker!

1 can of whole water chestnuts, drained
1 package of bacon
1/4 cup chili sauce (or ketchup)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Hot sauce to taste

Trim the larger pieces of fat from the bacon. You should be left with around 3/4 of a rasher of bacon per water chestnut. You could use 1/2 a rasher or less, but the more bacon the better.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll the bacon around the water chestnuts and place each roll, seam down, into the baking dish.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Remove from oven and drain fat from the pan.

Mix the remaining ingredients together to form a sauce and pour it over the rolls.

Bake for another 30 minutes

Stick a toothpick into each roll before serving.

Enjoy!

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