Good Gravy!

After Halloween, I knew I'd be missing all those cooking shows in America that focus on Thanksgiving recipes. I don't think the traditional food served on Thanksgiving is that great, but I do enjoy the cozy warmth of the holiday season in the U.S.  Weeks pass, and then all the sudden it's Thanksgiving in America. What?

 I feel conflicted about it since its origin story is so whitewashed, but I do enjoy seeing online photographs  of everyone's dinner table set up all pretty and full as they sit with their loved ones. And the challenge of trying to make a large amount of food for one dinner is always interesting. I've tried it only with chicken since I've no reason to cook an entire turkey.

So of course there's no Thanksgiving season here in Iran. There's no talk of pumpkin spice anything! I was missing the ambiance of it so I asked my daughter to draw me a ThanksgivingY picture. Here it is, isn't it amazing?! And isn't she lovely? MashaaAllah. I put it on the fridge to make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Anyway, on the day of Thanksgiving, I just used some leftover chicken and rice to create a pretty table setting of my version of MORGH POLOW. All that green stuff is called SABZI, herbs. It's a mixture of a variety that I'll talk about in another post. Iranians eat them raw just like this. Maybe they trim the stems and chop into smaller bites, but I didn't. And I just threw a whole radish on the plate for color, sliced it up later.

I had some left over crispy potatoes and crispy rice bits so added those here as well along with the steamed white and saffron-tumeric rice tossed with ZARESHK (barberries) and green chilies. 

Oh! I made some good ol' American style gravy. I love gravy. Recipe at the end.

My husband's plate.

Get a good look at that good gravy...

I wasn't in the mood for chicken or rice so I ate some leftover potato stuffed bread with raw herbs.

I ate some of it before remembering the gravy. "Gravy would go good with this," I thought. So I added some. Ok, I added A LOT. Yum. 

For the gravy I used 4 tablespoons butter, melted it, then slowly added 4 TBLS flour. Then added some homemade chicken stock until I had the right consistency. Then added some milk. When it looked like gravy--good, good gravy, I turned off the medium flame heat and added salt and pepper. 

Anyway, of course I have a million things to be grateful for as do most of us. Alhamdulillah. Not just on Thanksgiving, but everyday hooray. Later, Turkey.