What’s On Your Plate Blog Challenge – Harvest Festival Edition

The second Monday of October has been designated (since 1957) as the day Canada officially celebrates and gives thanks for the annual harvest. Although it has been recognized as an annual holiday since 1879, there wasn’t an official date to celebrate before then and sometimes it was celebrated in November instead of October. I don’t know if we ever shared the same date as American Thanksgiving however we did adopt their customs of making the meal centre around turkey, pumpkin pie, and squash!

This year’s Thanksgiving was even more special to me because it included some food that I had grown or harvested myself (which I am truly thankful for!) AND because it included a special cranberry relish made by my challenge co-host, Donna. Donna and Richard were able to join us at my daughter’s house for this special meal (another in the long list of things I am thankful for!)

Donna’s delicious cranberry relish (photo stolen from by Donna)

Kabocha squash (aka buttercup; aka Japanese pumpkin) is hands-down my favourite squash. This was my first year attempting to grow it and for some reason I had it in my mind that it was difficult to grow, or maybe that it couldn’t be grown in my climate. I’d only even seen imported kabochas in the grocery store and never seen it at farmers’ markets either so I had incorrectly surmised this. Thankfully I found some seed and took a chance, anyways! The plants ended up almost taking over my garden, like some kind of alien life force 🤣.

Kabocha squash spreading like the tentacles of an octopus all over the garden. Clearly not difficult to grow!
Most of this year’s kabocha squash harvest. One of these beauties ended up on the Thanksgiving table.

Another item featured in our harvest celebration was the blackberry! We had as a family gone blackberry picking on several occasions in August, and some of this hard-earned bounty ended up being featured in a trifle.

Blackberries from my freezer. I think most of the scars on my legs and arms from the harvesting of these have faded by now 😩 😉.
Blackberry jam made by my talented son-in-law being spread on the sherry-soaked cake as part of the assembly process for the trifle. The name on the jar says it all.

And here are some shots of the harvest feast:

Some of the dishes on the breakfast bar – turkey, stuffing, Donna’s relish, mashed potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts with pancetta, kabocha squash. Photo by Donna.
What was on our plates! Photo by Donna.
Ready to enjoy this feast! Photo by Donna.
My blackberry trifle and a fantastic pumpkin pie from the Wild Poppy (a delightful gluten-free bakery in town), for our harvest celebration dessert.

Bonus content: Last month there was some fun discussion in the Comments about my drawer of shame. I thought I would include a photo, so you have a visual…

A chaotic, chronic mishmash of mostly useful kitchen gadgets. STILL not organized.
For contrast and comparison, this is the drawer above the Drawer of Shame. Much more civilized.

That’s it for me for this month. As always, please join in the fun in the Comments section and/or join the Link Party.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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And please check out Donna’s blog, where she “goes bananas”!

Feeling thankful for all my readers and contributors to this challenge…💕🙏💕

Rock on,

The WB

56 thoughts on “What’s On Your Plate Blog Challenge – Harvest Festival Edition

    1. I hope you find them and that you won’t be disappointed. Every once in a while I pick up one at the grocery store that is dry and flavourless but usually they are sweet and delicious. And so far the ones from my garden have been great! Thanks, Dawn 💕

    1. Well, if you count me planting the squash in early May…yes, it has taken months for this meal to come together 🤣. But actually I started the meal prep the day before (for my contributions) – baking the cake for the trifle, letting the fruit thaw and soak in some brandy, making the dough for a loaf of bread…my daughter and son-in-law took care of the rest! Thanks, Bernie 💕

    1. It was really yummy! And we’ll be doing it all again for Christmas. There is something very comforting about traditional foods at certain times of year, isn’t there? Thanks, Natalie 💕

  1. Like you I take great joy in growing a lot of the food we serve at the Thanksgiving table. Big bonus is that our daughter and son in law now provide a fresh turkey. Blackberry trifle– that’s a unique dessert and worth the pain!

    1. That’s wonderful, Bernie! Yes, it was worth the pain – I can say that now. It doesn’t matter how thick your clothing or gloves are when you go picking, you are gonna get attacked by the brambles 🤣. Thanks 💕

  2. m2muse

    Delightful holiday meal. Many hands make light work. I take great joy from cooking food I’ve grown and even more from sharing it with others. I was responsible for providing baked goods for the brunch the day after a family wedding – carrot pineapple muffins (pineapple zucchini that I processed in Aug), rhubarb-raspberry muffins (harvested from the garden), lemon poppyseed loaf. I hosted the first in the Home Routes music concert series & stole a presentation idea from the wedding reception – roasted veg (beets, carrots, spaghetti squash, onions) served in rows. So pretty. “…it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other’s food & to say it was good.” by Brian Andreas from the Story People

    1. I LOVE that quote! Yes, many hands do indeed make the work light and so much fun too. Roasted veg laid out in rows would look amazing – hmmm, I may have to steal from you, Mona! Thank you 💕

  3. I love the idea of thanksgiving, but as you know, we don’t celebrate it. Yours looks amazing. As an aside, my drawer of shame looks similar to yours – as does my drawer above the drawer of shame. On another note, that relish! I must hassle Donna for the recipe!

  4. What a feast, Deb! It all looks wonderful and extra satisfying to know that you have grown the produce yourself. We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia although I think we should – it puts the focus on gratitude for at least one day of the year. Thanks for hosting #WOYP and sharing your Thanksgiving dinner with us. x

  5. Well, that got my mouth watering for our Thanksgiving, which is on Nov. 23. If you could please make another blackberry trifle and send it to us for our feast, I would be most grateful. Maybe you could get Donna to include a jar of her relish in the same package. TIA.

  6. Hi, Deb – I absolutely loved this meal from start to finish. I plan to work hard to stay in Jemma and Kevin’s good book so I get invited back again. 😀
    Thank you for the kabocha squash. I am trying to decide what to make with it. Roasted Kabocha with Maple Syrup and Ginger? Honeycrisp-Kabocha Salad? Curried Kabocha Squash Soup? Or Roasted Kabocha Squash with Vanilla Butter? There are so many great choices out there, I keep changing my mind! 😀

    1. I can’t wait to see what you do with it! I usually just roast it or microwave it, then mash and serve. Sometimes I cut it into wedges to roast and just serve it that way, along with whatever veggies I roasted beside it on the oven tray. Clearly I could be doing much much more! Thanks, Donna 💕

  7. Looks most delicious Deb. What a lovely family gathering. Fancy growing pumpkins in your garden. I only ever buy them already cut from the supermarket. Amazing

  8. Deb, the Kabocha squash look ornamental and I think they would look great in a centerpiece. The arch covered in vines and the way they reach out look beautiful in your garden. I am not a big fan of cooking a traditional Thanksgiving meal, especially since my family rates turkey low on the preferred protein scale, but you made it all look good. I think everyone has a ‘drawer of shame.’ I know I have at least two. I really should ‘think’ about getting around to organizing them.

    1. Kabocha squash are long lasting so indeed they could do double-duty as decor before ending up in the oven! They are just too delicious not to be eaten, though 😋. I’m so glad that I am not the only one with a shame drawer 😂, or two. Yeah, the “thinking” phase is so important, isn’t it? Mustn’t be rushed 😉. Thanks, Suzanne 💕

  9. What joy filled post! Love that you got to cook with things you grew yourself and shared your bounty with good friends and family. It all looks SO good! You have much to be thankful for this year and it’s been fun watching you transition to your new world.

  10. Sheila

    Love the name of the blackberry jam–very apt! Had to read your aside about legs and arms healing from harvesting blackberries to my husband. He had an encounter with a blackberry patch on the trail by the ferry outside of Nanaimo. My dad bought a small vacation place (really a dump) on the coast of Washington that was completely taken over by blackberries because nobody ever used it. Love blackberries, but the vines are awful.

    1. They are awful indeed – and deadly! Thanks for sharing – I have been on that trail and know just how many blackberry bushes there are on that trail. Thanks, Sheila 💕

  11. Your drawer of shame is similar to ours. I feel sometimes you gotta let things be where they get tossed. This said from a recovering perfectionist. Your meal looks delicious.

  12. This year I had my first Canadian Thanksgiving actually in Canada. My SIL, who hosted, had us over when they lived in the US and I was amazed at the similarity of dishes. I assumed she had been influenced. By looking at your delicious meal, could it be the other way around? Except for the trifle, wow that looks good and I want some next year (or maybe this year here!)

    1. According to Wikipedia, a lot of “our” Thanksgiving food traditions come from the US. My daughter was the one who suggested I make a trifle, years and years ago now. She reminded me of the photos of her enjoying trifle on her very 1st birthday and how her Oma was amazed at how her little self was packing it in 🤣. So it has become a family tradition now! Thanks, Tracey 💕

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  14. Catching up on the good eating that happened last month (before our November posts come racing!) – I love how you feast … seasonal produce plus sunshine captured in frozen fruit … such a lovely combination. And the best part, sharing it all with loved ones!

    I have to say that your kabocha image had me soft in the knees … I love viewing squash & pumpkins photos … and all of these came from your garden?!!! Envy much!

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