Thanksgiving Catering Menu Ideas for Pies, Breads, Shrimp, and Turkey!

The ovens are getting hot on Main Street, cooking special treats for you to serve at your Thanksgiving gathering. If you are hosting a Thanksgiving Dinner, you're going to want to invite more people because your catering menu choices are that good. If you're packing it all into a car to travel to Grandma's house, you're going to want to make room for a large storage box to transport the amazing food that's on the holiday catering menus at a few Main Street bakeries. After you read these choices, you may want to host a "Leftovers Party" just so that you have an excuse to serve more accent dishes.

For all of these menu options, you'll need to call each store ahead of time to place your order and check their hours for when they are closing for Thanksgiving. Some bakeries as well as a few restaurants are offering special hours around the holiday. Not all of your favorite eateries are closed on Thanksgiving Day!

Make your menu, decide what you're making and what you're ordering, and get to dialing!

Cheeses at Beacon Pantry.

CHEESE TEMPTATIONS
Because cheese can be stressful if you don't know how to order it, Beacon Pantry will hand select an array of artisanal cheeses for you, perfect to serve to company the night before Thanksgiving so that you don't have to cook, or on Thanksgiving afternoon as everyone waits for the turkey! You can also find artisanal cheeses at Homespun, but special to Beacon Pantry's Thanksgiving Catering Menu are cheese platters served with dried fruit, nuts, and sliced baguette or crackers. And if you're partial to your own platter, or want to spruce up your serving table by getting a new one from Hudson Beach Glass or Utensil, and bring the platter to Beacon Pantry and she'll plate your cheese for your order. Need a little olive oil for dipping? Stop into Scarborough Fare and pour your own flavor to take home.

Pumpkin fondue at Ella's Bellas.

Pumpkin Fondue...because you've never tried it, or because you've enjoyed a slice of pumpkin fondue at Ella's Bellas with a salad. It's also another reason to have a pumpkin on the table and because you don't have to prep this fondue! Ella's Bellas has a fully baked Pumpkin Fondue on their catering menu that comes stuffed with layers of cheese, bread and rosemary, baked to perfection. It also comes with re-heating instructions, and yes, you can eat the pumpkin flesh as you scoop for melted
 cheesy bread.

Thanksgiving is not complete without shrimp cocktail, and Beacon Pantry has mixed a house-made cocktail sauce to go with domestic wild caught shrimp.


THE TURKEY & STUFFING
You've got options, and an ability to give back to the community by ordering turkeys from these stores:
Beacon Natural Market is getting their turkey from three different farms this year:
Murry
Snowdance
Hidden Camp

Beacon Pantry is getting their turkey from two farms with a few options on the type of bird:
Campanelli Farm in Kenoza Lake, NY
Northwind Farm in Tivoli, NY

Key Food has partnered with I Am Beacon for the "Turkey on Every Table" food drive. Key Food will be storing all of the donated turkeys in their warehouse to be distributed. And of course you can get a turkey at Key Food.

Ella's Bellas is offering a Mushroom Herb Stuffing made with Ella's Bella's bread, celery, raisins, and apple, to be ordered per person. They are also offering seasoned cubed stuffing by the bag.


ROLLS
Oh brother, you have some tough choices to make. We are lucky enough to have a few really, really good bakeries in Beacon. We have so many good choices, that for this article, we needed to divide this carb section into Breads and Rolls. At All You Knead, find challah rolls, cranberry raisin pecan rolls, and regular white or multi-grain rolls. At Beacon Bread Company, find brioche loaf rolls, harvest grain loaf rolls, and rye rolls. At Beacon Pantry, find country white, challa, and whole wheat multigrain. And at Ella's Bella's, find rosemary or plain rolls. As with everything at Ella's Bellas, the rolls, bread, and anything is gluten-free.


BREADS
This is where your dinner planning gets tricky, but fear not, there will be a bread for your style of a meal. At All You Knead, find challah bread, cranberry raisin pecan bread, seeded rye bread, marble rye bread, and sourdough – plain or whole wheat, multi-grain, rosemary herb, or white wheat Pullman. Beacon Bread Company has a brioche loaf (it's perfection), a harvest grain loaf, as well as a baguette. Find sweet breads like orange gingerbread, banana, pumpkin cranberry, and apple raisin bread at Beacon Pantry. And expect to find has their rosemary or plain baguette at  Ella's Bella's all if which is gluten-free.

And because you need bread pudding, All You Knead has it in banana, pumpkin or chocolate flavors.

PIES AND OTHER SWEETS

Making your own pie? Utensil posted
a link to this recipe at FOLK.

You thought you were already in trouble? Brew a pot of coffee from Tas Kafé (at Ella's) or Sumptown (at Beacon Pantry), or Starbucks (at Key Food) because you're about to indulge in a lot of pie that will require your very own home made whipped cream that you whipped together from a pint of Hudson Valley Fresh cream (at Key Food,) vanilla, salt and powdered sugar.

Homespun is offering a variety of pies, starting with the basic pumpkin pie, and ranging to a caramel pecan tart, vanilla cranberry jam cake with pumpkin spiced buttercream, pumpkin cheesecake, almond daquoise with pumpkin buttercream (gluten free), and an apple pecan crumble in a deep dish aluminum tin.

At All You Knead, choose from an old fashioned pumpkin pie made with Denning's Point Distillery whiskey. Or go sweet and traditional with pecan, apple buttermilk, and apple pie.

Dennings Point Beacon
American Whiskey
in All You Knead's pumpkin pie.

Beacon Pantry has pumpkin, apple, apple crumb, cranapple, and a mixed berry crumb for those who need a fresh flavor after dinner. Beacon Pantry also spiced it up with Frangipane Tarts in many flavors including blueberry, raspberry and more.

Beacon Bread Company has traditional pumpkin, apple and pecan pies. Ella's Bellas has the traditional pumpkin, apple and pecan, but also tempt yourself with a fudge pie with a chocolate chip cookie or hazelnut shortbread crust. (!?!)

Get Frosted Cupcakery is also baking pies in the flavors of Apple, Cherry, Pumpkin, Peanut Butter, Lemon Meringue and Chocolate Cream. Want a cupcake? Pumpkin spice cupcakes and pumpkin cheesecakes are also available.

Check all stores for hours and ordering and pickup deadlines, and no, this isn't even everything you will find on their menus. Choices...you've got choices for a great dinner, and a reason to have a second party for leftovers with a fresh pie.