In need of Thanksgiving recipes?

Here are a few of my favorites that I pulled from my past entries. I hope they help you plan your dinner!

Pre-meal nibbles:

Really good roasted red pepper dip - yummy and health concious.

Candied Pecans - Addictive. You could add them to a salad as well! Or on top of sweet potatoes. Or just eat them straight like my family does.

Pecan Goat Cheese Balls - a fancy twist on a classic nosh.

Parmesan Prociutto Stuffed Mushrooms - Everybody loves these. Except vegetarians.

Soup:

Acorn Squash Soup - I love starting the meal off with soup. It's so warm and yummy.

Turkey:

My only turkey recipe on this blog - ridiculously indulgent and amazing. It calls for truffle butter. Enough said.

Sides:

Chestnut Leek and Apple Dressing - a fun, slightly different dressing (or stuffing if you want to put it in the bird - but don't do that).

Zucchini Gratin - you can get local zucchini in parts of the world that aren't the Northeast right now. And nothing says Thanksgiving like drenching green vegetables in cheese and cream.

Quinoa with Sun Dried Tomatoes - Great for the gluten free and super healthy (like my dad).

Braised Cabbage - Did you know that some parts of the country serve sauerkraut at Thanksgiving? This is a little more universally pleasing.

Sauteed Swiss Chard - Quick, simple, healthy. And it tastes good!

Simple Turkey Giblet Stock - great for making gravy!

Quick Glazed Root Vegetables - very appropriate for fall.

Pie:

Alli's Peanut Butter Pie - If you like peanut butter dessert, this is a great way to go.

Mixed Berry Pie - A classic.

Sweet Potato Pie - Incredibly good, and a nice change if you're sick of pumpkin.

I'll post some more this week as well, I hope! Get ready to eat!

Possibly the last Thanksgiving recipe...

Unless someone has a specific request, this may be my last Thanksgiving recipe. The holiday has been over for a while now and there are only so many holiday dishes one can take. However, I really liked this recipe (and so did my dad), so I figured I'd add it to the list. This may be the best vegetarian stuffing I've made yet.

Chestnut, Leek and Apple Stuffing
6 cups bread cubes (I used ciabatta....yum)
3 large leeks, white and pale green parts, chopped
1 stick unsalted butter
2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
2 celery ribs, chopped
1 tsp thyme
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 chopped flat leaf parsley
14-16 oz bottled, peeled chestnuts, halved (my mom totally didn't believe these existed. But they do! Here's my sister, modeling along side them. She's helpful that way.


Thanks, Alli!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake bread cubes for 15 minutes to dry them out.

2. Increase oven temp to 450 degrees. Hey, don't forget to wash your leeks and apples. Otherwise, you might eat dirt. Ick!

3. Melt the butter in a heavy skillet over medium heat.


I'm clogging everyone's arteries with this dish...but it only happens once a year.

4. Cook the leeks and the celery until soft, about ten minutes.


5. Add thyme, apples, and some salt and pepper. Saute for another 5 minutes.


6. Transfer to a bowl and toss with the bread, parsley, more salt and pepper and the cream (yeah, this recipe has butter and cream. Sue me. I didn't make it up). Put the mixture in a shallow baking dish.


7. Bake until heated through and the top is golden brown (about 30 minutes).


It was very good. What's not to like? Bread, cream, butter, apples...... I wasn't a huge fan of the bottled chestnuts, truth be told, but I wasn't about to roast, shell and halve three cups worth, so what can you do? Gourmet said it was okay.

Recipes are for suckers

Sometimes you get fancy recipes from Gourmet magazine. But sometimes you don't. Perfectly good food can be made by texting your friend Matt the day before Thanksgiving and saying "Hey, remember that time we had dinner and you made swiss chard with the stems in it? How did you do that?" He texted back some guidelines and away we go!

First, swiss chard (don't forget to wash it) - here are the leaves. Chop them up a bit so you don't get giant pieces of greens in your mouth.


And here are the stems - so pretty. I chopped them into pieces about an inch and half long. Why would you want to throw those away?


Now some chopped shallot (Matt suggested onion, but we had a lot of shallots).


That's pretty much it, you're ready to go!


Saute the shallot in some olive oil over medium heat - you want it to get soft, but not turn brown.


Then add the stems and cook until they're colorful (even more than they already are) and also turning soft.


Then add the leaves!


You may have to add them in batches - add some, let them wilt, add more.


Season with salt and pepper. I added some nutmeg too. Nutmeg is really good with sauteed greens.


That's it! Thanks Matt for your easy and delicious recipe.

I love cheese

One thing that gets looked over on Thanksgiving is appetizers. I love appetizers, especially the kind that gets passed on a little tray. I think that's cute and elegant at the same time. This would be a great recipe to make for holiday parties (hint, hint). My blog is so functional.

I got this recipe from Gourmet - gotta love it.

Pecan Goat Cheese Balls

1 cup pecans
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 (11-oz) log soft goat cheese
1 teaspoon minced rosemary
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed with side of a large knife, then chopped (or, you know, ground coriander. That's what I used)
About 50 to 60 large flat-leaf parsley leaves

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the pecans with butter, sugar and 1/2 tsp salt. Toast them in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Careful not to burn them. Then it's no good.


2. Pulse the pecans in a food processor. My mom doesn't have one of those, so I used her blender. It was not perfect, but one must make do.


3. Mix the goat cheese with the rosemary and coriander and 1/2 tsp pepper.


4. Roll the cheese mixture into little balls, using your palms. You want each ball to have about a tsp of mixture in it. Mine were a little too big. You want them to be one bite, not two (at least, I did). I had pictures of this - but my computer won't process them correctly. Oh well.

Then roll them in the pecan mixture and roll them between your palms again.


That's pretty much it. Spear each one with a toothpick and put them on top of the parsley leaves. I don't normally do things like that, but I figured, hey, why not? It's Thanksgiving. They were really good. Nice and creamy with a crunch outside...yum.

Why Are There No Thanksgiving Songs?

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Mine was great! No one refused to come up to the table or threw a fit. No one was high on heroin and we weren't at a Sizzler in Los Angeles. It was just lovely. Here's my sister, waiting for the big day at the already set table.


I'm going to post as many of these recipes as I can stand eventually, but for now, I'll show you some pictures and let you in on my final menu. Please note - everything on this menu was made from scratch. Because I'm crazy that way.


Appetizers:
Pecan Goat Cheese Balls

Main Dinner (made by me):
Roast Turkey with Black Truffle Butter and White Wine Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Chestnut, Leek and Apple Stuffing
Brussels Sprouts with Buttered Pecans
Sauteed Swiss Chard with Shallots
Green Beans with Pine Nuts and Lemon Zest
Caramelized Fennel with Parmesan
Homemade Cranberry Sauce
Buttermilk Biscuits

Side Dishes (made by Donna):
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Pies (made by Mom and MO):
Pumpkin
Apple

Ice cream and Whipped Cream, both from scratch, made my me and my sister.

Zack said this was an insane amount of food. I think he was just jealous not to be there. Doesn't everyone look happy?


Here's my plate, filled up with a little bit of everything. Let the holiday season begin!

If you're reading this, it's probably already Thanksgiving

Ah, Thanksgiving. A time for family (to drive you crazy). Whether they mean to or not (and usually out of love). A time for them to guilt you into making homemade ice cream and having the machine not work. But that's all part of the Thanksgiving experience (as my Uncle Danny might say).

My favorite cooking tasks are the super repetitive ones. If the recipe calls for rolling hundreds of cheese balls, kneading dough for 20 minutes or stuffing millions of mushrooms, I'm in heaven. Making stock is the opposite of that.

For really good gravy, you need homemade stock. For Thanksgiving, when you've got lots of giblets and spare parts hanging about your kitchen from the turkey, you have no excuse not to make some. Here's my turkey parts. The liver is the thing in the down left corner.


This recipe is from Gourmet - I followed it to the letter (for once).

Classic Turkey Stock
Turkey neck and giblets (excluding liver - that will make your stock bitter)
1 large onion, quartered
1 carrot, sliced
1 celery rib, sliced
Greens from one leek (optional)
3 parsley sprigs
3 thyme sprigs
10 cups of water
1 Tbs vegetable oil (ok, I used olive oil. I lied about following it to the letter)

Heat the oil in a stock pot. Brown the turkey parts and the onion.


Here's the vegetables all nice and chopped.


I've never seen a stock recipe that had leeks in it. That's why I picked it. Anyways, add all the vegetables and the water and the herbs to the pot and simmer it for two hours. Skim the fat from the top every once in a while. See? The opposite of repetitive. You just put it in a pot and walk away. That's weirdly stressful for me.


It should reduce by about half. Strain it and use it for gravy!

Almost time....

It's almost Thanksgiving (a food blogger's favorite holiday). I've got lots of delicious things in the works, but none to show you yet. This is the first Thanksgiving where I've arrived in CA more than an hour or two before midnight on Thursday, so I actually get to pick out my own vegetables this year (finally! I hate sending other people with lists. No surprises that way).

So far, I've got some lovely red swiss chard, fennel bulbs, Granny Smith apples, carrots, celery, potatoes, walnuts and more from the Alameda Farmer's Market. But there will be more! So much more.

For a little sneak peek, I can tell you that I'm using Gourmet's Roast Turkey with Black Truffle Butter and White Wine Gravy recipe....


Here's hoping mine turns out as well. Happy Cooking!