Thanksgiving 2010

Now that it's November, it's time to start thinking about what to cook for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving meal is at my grandma's house, but on the day after I get to cook a whole meal for a group of family and friends. Here's my preliminary menu with the turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes the only things set in stone.

18-20 lb Ho-Ka Turkey, brined and roasted
Turkey gravy
Mashed potatoes
Mac & Cheese w/pancetta
Stuffing of some sort
Roasted butternut squash
Green bean casserole - Does anyone have a more upscale recipe than using Campbell soup and French's?
Desserts are all up in the air

Skip the green bean casserole and substitute mashed rutabaga with crispy shallots for the squash. You'll be glad you did.

I have a guest, a friend of my daughter, coming who is completely lactose intolerant. No butter or milk in anything. I haven't searched yet, but any thoughts on what I can do with the mashed potatoes? I'm thinking I'll pull out her serving before mashing the rest with the usual butter and milk. How can I fix her portion?

EvA wrote:Skip the green bean casserole and substitute mashed rutabaga with crispy shallots for the squash. You'll be glad you did.

I have a guest, a friend of my daughter, coming who is completely lactose intolerant. No butter or milk in anything. I haven't searched yet, but any thoughts on what I can do with the mashed potatoes? I'm thinking I'll pull out her serving before mashing the rest with the usual butter and milk. How can I fix her portion?

My wife is lactose intolerant as well. The vegan butter and sour cream can still make some pretty good mashed potatoes that are creamy.

the wimperoo wrote:

EvA wrote:I have a guest, a friend of my daughter, coming who is completely lactose intolerant. No butter or milk in anything. I haven't searched yet, but any thoughts on what I can do with the mashed potatoes? I'm thinking I'll pull out her serving before mashing the rest with the usual butter and milk. How can I fix her portion?

My wife is lactose intolerant as well. The vegan butter and sour cream can still make some pretty good mashed potatoes that are creamy.

Thanks! Any particular brand(s) you and your wife like? I have never bought any of these.

EvA wrote:

the wimperoo wrote:

EvA wrote:I have a guest, a friend of my daughter, coming who is completely lactose intolerant. No butter or milk in anything. I haven't searched yet, but any thoughts on what I can do with the mashed potatoes? I'm thinking I'll pull out her serving before mashing the rest with the usual butter and milk. How can I fix her portion?

My wife is lactose intolerant as well. The vegan butter and sour cream can still make some pretty good mashed potatoes that are creamy.

Thanks! Any particular brand(s) you and your wife like? I have never bought any of these.

A good quality chicken broth/stock, roasted garlic and a touch of olive oil will do the trick as well (and enable you to skip buying a substitution product that you'd probably not use again...)

boudreaulicious wrote:A good quality chicken broth/stock, roasted garlic and a touch of olive oil will do the trick as well (and enable you to skip buying a substitution product that you'd probably not use again...)

Agreed and althought some people seem to feel it's way overused, I'd use truffle oil (so sue me - I like it)

EvA wrote:

the wimperoo wrote:

EvA wrote:I have a guest, a friend of my daughter, coming who is completely lactose intolerant. No butter or milk in anything. I haven't searched yet, but any thoughts on what I can do with the mashed potatoes? I'm thinking I'll pull out her serving before mashing the rest with the usual butter and milk. How can I fix her portion?

My wife is lactose intolerant as well. The vegan butter and sour cream can still make some pretty good mashed potatoes that are creamy.

Thanks! Any particular brand(s) you and your wife like? I have never bought any of these.

Earth Balance for the butter and Tofutti for the sour cream. We don't always have the sour cream so we do go with the chicken stock method as well.

the wimperoo wrote:Earth Balance for the butter and Tofutti for the sour cream. We don't always have the sour cream so we do go with the chicken stock method as well.

Thanks, all. I'd already thought of the chicken stock method but wanted to see what others recommend.

This is revised preliminary menu, trying to lower the carbs:

Hugeass turkey
Chestnut Stuffing (and if that fails, good ol' Stove Top)
Biscuits (this is mom's job now so I don't know where these are coming from)
Green Beans with Savory
Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Shallots and Sage
Corn Pudding
Jellied cranberries in the can
Equal pumpkin pie, Chocolate Cookies, and Carrot/Cardamom/Cashew Cupcakes with Cashew Cream.

For Mr. Pie's family, I'm making plain pumpkin pie, either streusel pumpkin pie or pumpkin cheesecake, and chocolate pecan pie (plus half of the cupcakes above).

I think we are heading in this direction for our Thanksgiving Day menu:

appetizers
cheese, olive and spiced almond platter
sausage and sage stuffed mushrooms
*looking for 1 more appetizer idea

Main / dinner
Turkey wrapped in bacon, stuffed with mom's stuffing which includes folding in pcs of cooked/chopped turkey liver
Old school mashed potatoes (mashed with butter and milk)
Green bean casserole (not a fan, but most of the family is)
roasted brussel sprouts with bacon
cranberry / orange sauce
roasted acorn squash
*looking for a good, simple and easy roll recipe. If I can't, I will pick up from a local bakery like every other year.

desserts
a combo pies, deciding on 3 of these: plain pumpkin, pecan, pumpkin pecan or apple
and I have to make this: pumpkin/white chocolate cheesecake. I made this last year and was told that this is a must-have for this year.

CM2772 wrote:looking for a good, simple and easy roll recipe. If I can't, I will pick up from a local bakery like every other year.

There was a good looking recipe for Parker House rolls in the current issue of Cooks Illustrated. I don't know how simple or easy they would be, but the pictures of the finished product looked very good.

stevez wrote:

CM2772 wrote:looking for a good, simple and easy roll recipe. If I can't, I will pick up from a local bakery like every other year.

There was a good looking recipe for Parker House rolls in the current issue of Cooks Illustrated. I don't know how simple or easy they would be, but the pictures of the finished product looked very good.

There's also a recipe for them in Saveur this month - from Tom Colicchio. He says his secret is barley malt syrup. I may make these this year. What also sounds good is he brushes them with clarified butter before and after baking and then sprinkles them with fleur de sel.

Diane wrote:

stevez wrote:

CM2772 wrote:looking for a good, simple and easy roll recipe. If I can't, I will pick up from a local bakery like every other year.

There was a good looking recipe for Parker House rolls in the current issue of Cooks Illustrated. I don't know how simple or easy they would be, but the pictures of the finished product looked very good.

There's also a recipe for them in Saveur this month - from Tom Colicchio. He says his secret is barley malt syrup. I may make these this year. What also sounds good is he brushes them with clarified butter before and after baking and then sprinkles them with fleur de sel.

Sorry. That's the one I was thinking of. Yes, it's in Saveur, not Cook's Illustrated. I've been simulreading both magazines and I got them mixed up.

Awesome. I will track it down...they sound wonderful.

Edited to add: tracked it down.

Recipe for parker house rolls as mentioned above can be found here:
http://www.saveur.com/article/recipes/C ... ouse-Rolls

Can any bread be proofed in the fridge the night before? I'm thinking of making these for my family, but I would need to make the dough on the 24th. Is that too long to leave them in the fridge? Thanks!

I would think it would be fine. I've been using recipes from a Peter Reinhart book, most of which use normal commercial yeast and also get an overnight retarding in the fridge. So I think you're fine.

Oops, I should have mentioned that my family's feast is the 26th. Perhaps I should bake them off on the 25th and just reheat on the 26th?

I would think it would be fine. I've been using recipes from a Peter Reinhart book, most of which use normal commercial yeast and also get an overnight retarding in the fridge. So I think you're fine.

The thing to be careful about is that I think Reinhart developed those recipes assuming an overnight retardation, which might affect the amount of yeast being used. It's a longer rise at a lower temperature so I'm not sure if that means more, less or the same yeast.

For example, I do a pizza dough which is retarded for 48-72 hours, and the amount of yeast in the recipe is a lot less than the amount used in a pizza dough which is mixed, proofed for a couple of hours and baked.

I think you're probably OK with an overnight rise in the fridge but it might not turn out exactly the same.

Pie Lady wrote:Oops, I should have mentioned that my family's feast is the 26th. Perhaps I should bake them off on the 25th and just reheat on the 26th?

This is what I would do. I'm planning on baking the rolls on Wednesday and serving them on Thursday. I'll just underbake them a bit. I've done that with other rolls in the past. I always try to get as much done in advance if I can-the day of can be so hectic.

Hi,

At the Indiana State Fair, Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance sponsored an heirloom recipe competition. Tied for third prize were these absolutely divine yeast dinner rolls.



If you scroll down this page, you will find the backstory and recipe. It is a dough that can be made ahead and let rise in the refrigerator.

Regards,

stevez wrote:There was a good looking recipe for Parker House rolls in the current issue of Cooks Illustrated. I don't know how simple or easy they would be, but the pictures of the finished product looked very good.

Let's not forget that Ho Chi Minh had a brief stint as a baker at the Parker House so no Thanksgiving tradition can be complete without a post-Thanksgiving turkey banh mi on a Parker House roll.

Cajun Smoked Turkey. Now where did I leave the cajun? Seriously anybody have a good cajun rub/glaze/mariande or brine process for smoked turkey?

Sweet potatos
Corn Bread
Something green
Cranberres
pumpkin pie
pecan pie

taking it easy this year:

Doing a couple Ho-ka birds:

(1) whole turkey in the oven maybe 15 lbs.
(1) brined then smoked breast in the WSM.

basic sides(my family has to have certain dishes every year or they wont come):

- sausage stuffing(some in the bird some out of the bird)
- green bean casserole
- cranberry slices
- mashed potatoes
- plain gravy
- giblet gravy
- dinner rolls

Apps:

- thinking about a seafood tray(steamed shrimp & crab legs)

dessert:
- cookies
- homemade pumpkin pie

the wimperoo wrote:Green bean casserole - Does anyone have a more upscale recipe than using Campbell soup and French's?

Did a quick version a couple years back, based on this recipe, and here's another that was recommended by leek in the same thread. I'd always wanted to try the crispy shallots.

It's not that much harder to make from scratch than it is when you're dumping cans of stuff in a casserole...but it's definitely better. Basically, any soup-based casserole can be improved with a quick homemade bechamel, flavored with whatever the soup is about (sauteed celery, mushrooms, etc.)

We're doing:

Roast turkey with mushroom sauce
Oyster, sausage cornbread stuffing
Potato parsnip gratin
Brussel sprouts sauteed with bacon and chestnuts
Cranberry orange relish
Popovers
Debating between chocolate pecan pie vs persimmon tart

EvA wrote:I have a guest, a friend of my daughter, coming who is completely lactose intolerant. No butter or milk in anything. I haven't searched yet, but any thoughts on what I can do with the mashed potatoes? I'm thinking I'll pull out her serving before mashing the rest with the usual butter and milk. How can I fix her portion?

If she's not low-fat as well, you can mash them with schmaltz. That's how my kosher-keeping grandmother always made them.

LAZ wrote:

EvA wrote:I have a guest, a friend of my daughter, coming who is completely lactose intolerant. No butter or milk in anything. I haven't searched yet, but any thoughts on what I can do with the mashed potatoes? I'm thinking I'll pull out her serving before mashing the rest with the usual butter and milk. How can I fix her portion?

If she's not low-fat as well, you can mash them with schmaltz. That's how my kosher-keeping grandmother always made them.

Mmm...schmaltz. She's not low-fat that I know of, but some people are funny about the idea of chicken fat. Thanks for the idea!

Completely off topic, but if schmaltz is chicken fat, how did we get the term schmaltzy to mean overly sentimental?

Pie Lady wrote:Completely off topic, but if schmaltz is chicken fat, how did we get the term schmaltzy to mean overly sentimental?

An interesting question. Schmaltz is actually any rendered animal fat; in Ashkenazi Kosher cooking it was often goose fat. Schmaltz suggests fat and full and thus perhaps too much, hence too sentimental, too soppy, mushy? Why does cheesy suggest something inauthentic and cheap? We could start a whole thread on food-related words that have come to mean something else, couldn't we?

101 Cookbooks has an excellent compendium of vegan and vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes here. I've done this sort of thing frequently myself - sides with olive oil instead of butter, wine (some wine may not be vegan, so pls check with your guest) or apple cider instead of stock, and the addition of nuts and fruits to make things hearty. Although they change the character of a dish, pureed roasted garlic, avocado, or pureed almonds and other nut butters can make a fair vegan exchange for dairy (think of white gazpacho or romesco sauces.)