First Thanksgiving mini-dinner

I have to admit that I've never really made an entire Thanksgiving dinner.  Ya know, the turkey and all the fixings.  I'm usually invited to other people's homes and I bring a dish or two to contribute but I'm never the hostess.  I remember one year in high school or junior high my mom decided on making each of us a cornish hen for the holiday with her zucchini stuffing.  I wanted to recreate her dish knowing that I couldn't make it for any dinner this year due to my work schedule.  Thankfully I wasn't needed and I was able to enjoy my favorite holiday with my sister and her family.  However, I had already gone to the market and bought all the ingredients I needed to make my own mini-Thanksgiving dinner.  Cornish hens, green beans, zucchini, a bag of potatoes and pumpkin pie.  After two days of eating turkey and the weekend was approaching I had a desperate need to make the hens that had been thawing in my fridge for the last three days.

I got a recipe from a friend who had been using Ina Garten's Perfect Roast Turkey recipe for years and she had suggested using the chicken version.  A simple recipe that sounded delicious with minimal prep time which was exactly what I needed for my first time.  On a side note; she has a recipe for cornish hens but I didn't use it.  The recipe calls to clean out the giblets and excess fat and rinse the inside thoroughly.

Yeah, that was strange.  I felt like I just violated a hen.

Then I needed to stuff the inside with the remaining ingredients.

Okay so not only did I just violate the poor thing, I tortured it by stuffing it with foreign objects.


But in the end, it turned out...perfect.  The skin was so crispy and the meat was not dry at all.  Sadly, I wasn't motivated enough to make my mom's zucchini stuffing that day but I'll make it for the other hen.   


Pictured: Cornish hen, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes.