Thanksgiving 2013

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I hope the lousy weather hasn’t interfered with your plans.

I have lots of family and friends around, but I keep something else close by as I cook for the holiday. Many of my recipes, like yours too I’m sure, are family recipes…from my mother.

A LONG time ago, back in the 20th century, when H and I moved overseas, I was planning our first Thanksgiving dinner for friends, so I wrote to my mother (that’s how we did it then) for her famous Thanksgiving recipes. (WHY I didn’t think of getting them before we left, I’ll never know…)

She wrote me back on an aerogram (remember those?) and, in her beautiful script, she managed to fit the most important recipes I would need for a perfect homemade Thanksgiving – Turkey, Stuffing, her world-famous Pecan Pie and Pumpkin Pie.

I’ve kept that aerogram all these years and, boy, does it show every splatter and stain!

I finally glued it to another piece of paper and it’s by my side as I cook and I still refer to it. I look at her handwritten recipes and I remember the countless extra-ordinary Thanksgivings at her table and how patient she was about everything, but especially with the mess I used to make in the kitchen. I’m sad that she’s not here anymore, at Thanksgiving most of all, but I am truly grateful for all the years she was and for her beautiful spirit that gets passed on at least partly through her recipes.

I’ve given you this recipe before, but it’s the best of the bunch. It’s a never- fail, sweet, but not too sweet, Pecan Pie. My only contributions to the recipe are my own shortcrust (from a Cordon Bleu recipe) and, before baking the pie, I always fill in any spaces or gaps on the top with more pecans. Also I don't chill my pastry before rolling out. It can rest in the fridge while you mix the filling.

Have a wonderful day. Enjoy the cooking and company and try to swing it so someone else does the dishes. 

My Mom’s Pecan Pie
Printable recipe here.

Filling:
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups dark corn syrup
2 tbls. plus 1 tsp. melted butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup pecan halves plus a few more to fill in any gaps
1 9"-10" unbaked pie shell (shortcrust recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 350°F.  

Beat eggs just until blended, but not frothy. Add sugar, salt, and corn syrup. Add cooled melted butter and vanilla, mixing just enough to blend.

Spread nuts in bottom in bottom of pie shell. Pour in filling. Fill in any gaps in the top with more pecans. Place pie in oven. Reduce heat to 325°F at once. Bake 50-60 minutes. Makes 8-10 servings.

Shortcrust Pastry:
1 1/2 cups flour
6 tbls. unsalted butter
2 tbls. shortening (I use Crisco)
4 to 6 tbls. ICE water 

Place flour in the food processor. Add butter and shortening and pulse until evenly incorporated. Add 3 tbls. ice water and process until mixed. Add another tablespoon of water and process just until mixture comes together. You may need a spoonful or more of water. Knead into a ball and roll out between sheets of plastic wrap. Line pie dish and crimp edge decoratively.

Pie crust may be frozen in the pie dish after wrapping well. Remove from freezer about 20 minutes before filling and baking.

My Top 5 Thanksgiving Tips

Time’s a wasting and I hope you’re knee deep (elbow deep?) in Thanksgiving preparations. Those pies aren’t going to make themselves! I may have shared these tips before - especially number 1, but they bear repeating. 

#5 Make a list of all the dishes you plan to serve on Thanksgiving. Refer to it occasionally during the serving of the meal. I still remember the July 4th when I found red cabbage slaw in the fridge AFTER our barbecue. H’s darling grandmother made everyone have a bowl of it then and there. (This is even more critical at Thanksgiving. You may not have a lovely relative pushing the creamed onions after you’ve served the pumpkin pie.)

#4 For an effortless garnish for your turkey, place a dozen or so lady apples and/or little pears around the turkey for the last hour of cooking. Remove them to a plate, cover with foil to keep warm and place around the platter of sliced turkey.

#3 Keep all your vegetable trimmings (the stock-appropriate ones) from 2 or 3 days before Thanksgiving to add to your turkey stock. Store in plastic bags in the fridge. I have a stockpot going from the time the turkey goes into the oven until it’s time to make the gravy. I add carrot trimmings, onions skins (which gives poultry or vegetable stock a nice golden color), onion ends, celery hearts and parsley stems. Often I don’t need to add any other vegetables.(My gravy recipe is at the end.)

#2 Roll out your pie crust right after it’s made and BEFORE it's chilled. One of the reasons people flock to bought pie crusts, I think, is because homemade ones are so hard to roll out after chilling…which most recipes tell you to do.

It’s a hundred times easier to roll it between plastic wrap while it’s nice and malleable. Place 2 sheets of plastic wrap on your counter overlapping width-wise, so it will handle a 12 to 14 inch wide piece of dough, if you need it to. Place your flattened ball of dough in the middle. Cover with another piece of plastic wrap and roll out to desired size. I usually line the pie dish, flute the edges (if it’s a one crust pie) and cover it gently and freeze. I take it out as I’m making whatever filling goes in and it’s all ready to go. If you’re baking your pie that day, you still should freeze it for a half hour to firm it up.

I also freeze the crusts for two crust pies. I do the bottom crust first and then after rolling out the top crust, I lay it on an upside down baking sheet and freeze it. It stays between the same 2 sheets of plastic wrap that I’ve rolled it between. 

For a lattice, I remove the dough a little early from the freezer and let it sit out for 5 minutes and then cut it into strips. It cuts beautifully and it’s unfrozen enough to twist nicely.

#1 Turn your turkey upside down when it comes out of the oven. This is my favorite Thanksgiving tip of all time! This applies to a stuffed AND not-stuffed turkey. The juices flow down into the breast, where they're needed the most and results in a moister turkey. I know it’s hot, heavy and hard to handle, but it’s worth it. Silicone oven mitts work well here. Cover loosely with foil to keep warm while the turkey rests for at least 20 minutes.

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Gravy (makes about 4 cups)

I multiply this recipe by four and I've never run out. I also keep Gravy Master on hand in case I haven’t had time to cook the flour to a nice nutty brown. I don’t really approve of it, but that doesn’t stop me from using it if I have to.

3 tbls. fat, skimmed from the drippings of the cooked turkey*
¼ cup flour
up to 3 cups stock, hot is best, but don't worry about it
1 cup white wine
optional: Gravy Master

After the turkey comes out of the oven, remove it from the roasting pan and place it upside-down on a cutting board with trough. Cover with foil. Pour drippings from pan into measuring cup.

Add one cup of white wine to turkey-less roasting pan. Bring to the boil and stir, getting all those little bits up. Remove from heat and set aside for the moment.

Spoon 3 tablespoons of fat from the drippings into a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour and cook over low heat, stirring all the time until golden brown. (I often whisk the roux with a fork to get the smoothest roux.) Strain wine from roasting pan into saucepan and keep whisking over heat.

Start whisking in the stock until you’ve added 2 1/2 cups. Bring to a boil. Keep whisking.  Continue simmering until the gravy is the consistency you desire, adding more stock if necessary.

If you have a lot of lumps, don’t panic and strain mixture into large bowl and return to rinsed out saucepan. NOTE: You may not need to add all the stock. It depends how thick you want your gravy and how much time you have to keep reducing it. 

Add Gravy Master to improve the color if needed. Taste for seasoning (all along). Keep warm over low heat.

* I don’t actually skim the drippings. I just pour whatever’s in the roasting pan in a pitcher and measure THAT for my fat. Whatever is left in the pitcher gets added to the stock and mixed into the roux.

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The super long version of my gravy recipe is here. Maybe save it for when you’re less busy and start reading it in July… to get ready for next Thanksgiving.

Friendsgiving With Bourbon Sweet Potatoes and Grand Marniered Cranberries

 

I had never heard of the term Friendsgiving until my across-the-country daughter, D, told me that’s how she was spending last Sunday. The way she described it was that it was like Thanksgiving, but without all the annoying relatives.

I was pretty sure she also said it was going to be only side dishes (which are, let’s face it, the best part of Thanksgiving…next to the pies). The notion of a turkey-free Thanksgiving didn’t shock me, except where would the gravy come from for the mashed potatoes? But when I saw her pictures, there was this big beautiful turkey in them. Apparently, the hosts decided it just wouldn’t be Friendsgiving without the turkey. (LA-based D wanted to have a giant burrito instead of the bird, but she was voted down.)

The idea is that all the guests bring their own favorite dish from their family’s Thanksgiving. I was so proud when D had so many to choose from that she brought TWO!!!And what a great way to celebrate, especially as in D’s case, if you still have your own family’s Thanksgiving to go home to.

H and I spent many Novembers in other countries and we never missed celebrating Thanksgiving. Like D, we had friends and not family with us, but it didn’t have the same vibe of Friendsgiving - where everyone brings something and you have many family traditions on one table. I was always, for good or bad, firmly in control of the menu. 

But no matter who’s doing the actual cooking, I like the concept of people forming family-type units wherever they are and using holidays as a way to cement those bonds. Plus I don’t think you could ever have too many Thanksgivings or Friends- or Relative-Givings for that matter. The more pumpkin or Brussels Sprouts (just this one time of year) in as many guises as possible is okay with me! And, PS, back to my second sentence, NOBODY at MY Thanksgiving is ever annoying!

Here are the two recipes that D made with some photos of the rest of her Friendsgiving meal. (I pretended not to see the Stovetop stuffing box.)

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Even though I call this recipe Bourbon Sweet Potatoes, I use only yams. (Here’s a short primer on the two varieties. I just remember YES! for yams!)

Bourbon Sweet Potatoes (makes 8 generous servings)
Printable recipe here.

 

4 1/2 lbs. yams

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup orange juice (fresh is the best)

1/3 cup bourbon (start with half and add the rest to taste)

4 tbls. firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg

1/3 cup pecans, halved or chopped, toasted

Scrub yams. Cook covered, in boiling water about 35 minutes or until tender. Drain. Cool slightly. Peel.

Put potatoes through a food mill over large mixer bowl. Add butter, orange juice, bourbon, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Beat until smooth and fluffy. Spoon into large buttered soufflé dish.

Arrange pecan halves, if using, decoratively over top. Or sprinkle chopped nuts around outside edge.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to bake - up to one day ahead.Remove plastic wrap and bake, uncovered, at 350°F for 45 minutes or until lightly browned.

NOTES:

I use any type of whiskey I have on hand (including Chivas!).

I put the yams through a food mill to get them really smooth. Leave out this step if you have no food mill. (But they are handy to have!) They’ll be fine, you may just encounter a few stringy bits.

If you’re feeding 12 to 15 people, multiply the recipe by 1 and a half. Put the mixture into one large soufflé dish and one small one.   

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Suzanne's Cranberries (serves 8 as a side dish) 
Printable recipe here.

This is a very saucy version of cranberries (as in they have a lot of liquid), but they do thicken with time, so definitely make them ahead. I usually make them the week before (at least) and freeze them. 3 tbls. orange flavored liqueur - Grand Marnier or Cointreau 1 envelope plain gelatin 2 cups sugar 2 cups water 4 cups (1 lb.) fresh cranberries grated rind of 1 orange juice of 1/2 lemon Pour orange liqueur into a small glass bowl. Sprinkle over gelatin. Let sit for 5 minutes. Combine sugar and water in large saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil for 5 minutes. Add cranberries. Boil 5 minutes longer. (The cranberries will pop). Remove from heat. Add gelatin mixture to hot cranberries. Stir to dissolve. Stir in grated orange rind and lemon juice. Pour into serving container and chill overnight. Or pour into plastic containers and freeze for up to a month. Thaw overnight in refrigerator and pour into serving dish. NOTE: Cranberries usually come in 12 oz. bags, so here are the ingredients for 2 bags of cranberries: 4 tbls. + 1 1/2 tsps. orange flavored liqueur - Grand Marnier or Cointreau 2 envelopes plain gelatin (I used to say 1 1/2 envelopes, Just use 2...it's fine.) 3 cups sugar 3 cups water 24 oz. fresh cranberries grated rind of 1 1/2 oranges juice of 1 lemon

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