pairs4life wrote:I am curious if folks have a "new" favorite on their table from yesterday. Something that will at least make holiday rotation if not more often.

For me it was definitely the roasted kabocha, chickpea soup with homemade harissa.

I made the Food Lab's Hasselback potato gratin and it is the best combination of amazing taste and cool presentation. Highly recommended.

gnarchief wrote:I made the Food Lab's Hasselback potato gratin and it is the best combination of amazing taste and cool presentation. Highly recommended.

Moetchandon made the same thing .... agreed, highly recommended. It's like taking scalloped potatoes and turning the dial up to eleven.

Everything turned out very good this year with the exception of the apple pie of all things!
I tried the "Classic Apple pie" recipe from the Hoosier Mama pie book,
and I made it a day ahead on Weds.
It has SOOOO many steps, very fussy, and I followed them ALL to the letter.
It took forever, and it in the end it was SOUPY!
I was really annoyed!
Next year it's back to Better Homes and Gardens..LOL

I made a cauliflower and bacon soup, also from Serious Eats, in place of my usual butternut squash option. It was excellent. The soup had an almost velvety texture, and really deep smoky flavor from the bacon and onions. The recipe is on their website, but is very basic and pretty quick to prepare as well.

My recollection is that you just cook about 1/2 pound of sliced bacon until crispy and remove for later. Cook about 1 chopped medium yellow onion 5 or 6 sliced scallions, and 3 or 4 cloves of sliced garlic in the bacon fat for 5 minutes. Then, cut up a whole head of cauliflower and add that, some chicken stock, 2 bay leaves and heavy cream to the pot. Cook for about 30 minutes until cauliflower is tender and then blend. Top with the bacon and some additional sliced scallions. We will be having this one again, for sure.

irisarbor wrote:Everything turned out very good this year with the exception of the apple pie of all things!
I tried the "Classic Apple pie" recipe from the Hoosier Mama pie book,
and I made it a day ahead on Weds.
It has SOOOO many steps, very fussy, and I followed them ALL to the letter.
It took forever, and it in the end it was SOUPY!
I was really annoyed!
Next year it's back to Better Homes and Gardens..LOL

Because no one apple is the same, I don't find this unusual. Some just have more liquid than others. I've remedied this issue by cooking my filling in advance. I make sure to use apples that will not disintegrate so once I place the cooled filling in the pie shell to bake, I know exactly how it is going to turn out. It's not as easy if you want firmer apples of course, but by using this method, you can add a little extra corn starch slurry if the filling appears too watery. My method also eliminates the dome effect (when there's a huge gap between the top crust and cooked apple filling).

I'll also preach a little that I'm not a huge fan of most pastry chefs' apple pie recipes. Most of them call for 2-2.5 pounds of apples per pie. I typically use 3.5-3.75 pounds of apples in a 9-inch pie. I'm not sure if the difference reflects a preference towards a higher crust to apples ratio or towards keeping costs down, but in my opinion any double-crust apple pie recipe calling for less than 3 pounds of apples is not worth the time.

BR wrote:I'll also preach a little that I'm not a huge fan of most pastry chefs' apple pie recipes. Most of them call for 2-2.5 pounds of apples per pie. I typically use 3.5-3.75 pounds of apples in a 9-inch pie. I'm not sure if the difference reflects a preference towards a higher crust to apples ratio or towards keeping costs down, but in my opinion any double-crust apple pie recipe calling for less than 3 pounds of apples is not worth the time.

I prep the apples and put them into the pie pan I intend to use. Once they reach a mound I am satisfied with, I stop and prepare the pie dough. Once the dough comes out, the apples go in to be seasoned. I've never weighed my pies, though they are always heavier than commercial pies.

I saw just last week a sous vide method for making apple pies via SeriousEats.com. The person who linked to it also placed in Brie on the bottom of the pie crust.

I've never pre-cooked the apple pie filling before. I did underestimate the cooking time on some apple pies I made this week. I was getting ready to hit the road, when I notice what was going on. I delivered the pies to my friends with the advice to put them in the oven at 350 for 30-40 minutes. If I had noticed this an hour earlier, I would have done the deed myself.

Regards,
Cathy2

HI,

I did not cook Thanksgiving for the first time in 43 years. My sister Jeanne hosted at her farm downstate. In August, we learned my nieces would be in India and Kansas City over Thanksgiving. My 90+ year old cousin just moved to Denver. When I realized our anchors for staying home were gone, I contacted my sister.

Naturally, I offered to cook at my sister's. I did not get any response until two weeks before. My sister had just received a HyVee grocery store catalog. She called to invite, then joked about getting dinner from HyVee. I commented if she was hosting, she could do whatever she wanted. A few minutes later, she called back to announced dinner would come via HyVee.

I think I should have had a clue, when she was laughing just a bit too much. She expected a hectic schedule, so her boyfriend did all the planning and cooking.

There was no turkey on Thanksgiving, there was roast beef instead. It was more like Christmas dinner than Thanksgiving, I really did miss the bird. While I was told to bring nothing, I did bring my cooler and plastic bags to take the turkey carcass home.

I still did not miss out on cooking a turkey. She had one in her freezer I took home to cook the following week.

Since this was an off-cycle bird, I decided to make the mashed potato stuffing I was curious about. I saw where someone had a mish mash of mashed potatoes, dried bread, celery and onions. Remembering EvA's response to the family stuffing, I did not get into summer savory or sage, either.

I cooked the bird at 325 for a few hours, then removed the stuffing before jacking up the temperature to crisp and brown. Once the bird came out to rest, the stuffing in a casserole went back to warm and crisp.

This stuffing was approved, even by the person who now claims not to like stuffing.

It might make the Christmas dinner table as the neck stuffing. The nieces are fierce traditionalists, who might like it or they might get all picky. Another negative: if they like something, it is a new addition, but I cannot take anything away already approved.

Quite often Christmas is a repeat of Thanksgiving, but not this year!

Regards,
Cathy2

Cathy2 wrote: Since this was an off-cycle bird, I decided to make the mashed potato stuffing I was curious about. I saw where someone had a mish mash of mashed potatoes, dried bread, celery and onions. Remembering EvA's response to the family stuffing, I did not get into summer savory or sage, either....
This stuffing was approved, even by the person who now claims not to like stuffing.

It sounds quite good (although I'm sure you made real mashed potatoes, not instant, as in your recipe link). I believe my MIL's recipe is more or less egg-enriched mashed potatoes heavily flavored with summer savory. I really should ask her while we still can. Did you serve mashed potatoes in addition to the potato stuffing? She always did, although often mixed with mashed rutabaga.

HI,

Fresh mashed potatoes, yes!

I did not serve mashed potatoes in addition, because it was just the three of us.

On the turkey leftover front, I followed Binko's suggestion to make Flygande Jakob, or "Flying Jacob,". This will be repeated soon!

Regards,
Cathy2