Thanksgiving 2014 menu ideas

The number of days for recipe testing and menu refining is dwindling, the stack of November food magazines has been thoroughly thumbed, and the frenzied emails with family are beginning, so it seems time to start this year's thread! What's on your menu? Anyone especially excited about new dishes they'll be trying for the first time, or novel techniques and ingredient combos? Have you gone full throttle Ottolenghi?

I'm a little bit enamored of the roasted sunchokes with aged balsamic in this month's Bon Appetit, and I'm playing with vinaigrette ideas (cinnamon? cayenne?) for an orange/fennel/oil-cured-olive salad to lighten up the fare (and likely get ignored). We're loyal to a pumpkin mousse pie of my grandmother's (in the great 1950's "chiffon" tradition; greatly exceeds all those thick sweetened-condensed-milk versions), and always make tiny sweet potato muffins that get super caramelized. James Beard's oyster dressing is also a must for us.

Look forward to getting inspired by you all!

Would love the recipe for that pumpkin mousse pie

We always have a sweet potato casserole with crushed pineapple in it, graham cracker crust, mini marshmallows on top.
For stuffing, it has 3 or 4 kinds of mushrooms, maybe nuts, chestnuts if I find them,
half in turkey w giblets, half in a dish with seitan or tempeh for the vegetarian brother & family.
an several tubes of croissants are a must! LOL

All I know for sure is Sweet Potato Pie with a Sesame Brittle Topping, turkey breast and legs (no carving for me this year), and corn pudding. And lots of drinks with Campari.

Drinks, alcohol, yes please!
We usaully do plenty o'prosecco....

After several years of going out to a restaurant due to family travel and space limitations, we are back to home-cooking this year, at my parents' new home in Orlando. My mother has asked me to make http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Marzipan-Cheesecake-15731. If you like flavored cheesecakes, chocolate, and almonds, it is very good. I will also make a chocolate chip-nut-bourbon (don't call it "Derby" or you'll get sued) Pie.

Cranberry cosmos with homemade granita! YUM... this is Mama's favorite drink to cool off with when slaving over the hot stove.

ETA: the recipe!

Not sure what else we're doing this year, but I'm staying tuned. I love to hear what you all are up to, you're such a creative and daring bunch!

I'm in charge of bringing bread. In previous years, I've made dinner rolls, even fancy knotted dinner rolls-- but always had the feeling my in-laws would be happier with something out of a paper tube. This year, I'm thinking about the Garlic-slathered stretch bread from Marcy Goldman's book "A Passion for Baking". My only concern is making it for the 2-hour drive to the far exurbs with a warm garlic bread in the car.

I made this pumpkin pie last month-- it's great and I'll probably make it again, but not waste it on my in-laws, who are more the Cool Whip/lime jello types. Anyway, a nearly perfect pumpkin pie:
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/clas ... n-pie.aspx

Thanks to all the contributors to this thread for inspiration-- I'm particularly inspired by the cranberry cosmos!

Cheers, Jen

irisarbor wrote:Drinks, alcohol, yes please!
We usaully do plenty o'prosecco....

Last year we did prosecco and French 75s--excellent, and I think we may do again.

What are people doing for appetizers? Last year I did rosemary cashews and baked brie, which were good, but this course is about the only one I can still play around with. After tinkering the last few years, our menu for the main meal is pretty set; I see it won't be too different from my 2012 posting. For dessert, we will have my cousin's pumpkin bars and (I hope) Door County cherry pie, and I'll bake a birthday cake for my son, a family birthday favorite, my Viennese great-grandmother's Sacher Torte.

The last few years we have had the butcher cut up the turkey and used this recipe:

http://leitesculinaria.com/59625/recipe ... urkey.html

The dark meat is braised and the white meat is roasted. I have put the breast on the grill. It is amazing how quickly it cooks, which goes to show how overcooked we usually have it when we roast the whole bird. I had about given up on eating turkey breast, but this turns out well.

nuts, crudites, and we often get some vegetarian chopped liver from Elegance in Meats in Northbrook
-it's really good, and much less heavy, and great for our half-vegetarian group.

irisarbor wrote:vegetarian chopped liver from Elegance in Meats in Northbrook

What is it made of? Does it taste anything like real schmaltz-laden chopped liver.

You can make vegetarian chopped liver yourself. There are two main recipe versions I've seen out there, they mostly use walnuts and then some other vegetable - mushrooms or greenbeans

And it really does taste a lot like chopped liver!

http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2012/ ... ped-liver/
http://kosherfood.about.com/od/vegetari ... pliver.htm

Mine uses eggplant--I make it every Passover--I think it's pretty good--Pairs4life can vouch for it

Vegetarian Chopped “Liver”
• 6 tablespoons oil
• 1 cup, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups eggplant
• 1 cup mushrooms
• Pickles, minced
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• 30 walnut halves
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Preparation:
1. Fry onions in oil until soft. Add vegetables, and fry until tender. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Put vegetables into a food processor. Add eggs and nuts. Process until smooth.

It's interesting that many of the ideas here are about appetizers and drinks. My ordinarily-cocktail-enthusiast family skips happy hour and any appetizers on Thanksgiving, to leave room for all the intensity at the table. I heard a little debate about this today on WBEZ's The Afternoon Shift, which was interviewing this guy, who is staunchly anti-appetizer on turkey day:
http://www.sporkful.com

leek wrote:You can make vegetarian chopped liver yourself. There are two main recipe versions I've seen out there, they mostly use walnuts and then some other vegetable - mushrooms or greenbeans

And it really does taste a lot like chopped liver!

http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2012/ ... ped-liver/
http://kosherfood.about.com/od/vegetari ... pliver.htm

I concur that it tastes like liver. I make the version with green beans, walnuts, onions and hardboiled eggs. Delicious.

The one from Elegance in Meats does taste a lot like the real deal.
It's made with lentils, walnuts, and green beans.
not sure what else is in there- I don't think they have eggs, but I wouldn't swear to it.
it 's really good tho, and once it's on a Triscuit....

I have to have appetizers, because my folks are early eaters and my brother rarely shows up on time.

One year I did carrot soup "shots" and everyone was all weirded out with soup in shot glasses-
It was just too "foodie" for them LOL

boudreaulicious wrote:Mine uses eggplant--I make it every Passover--I think it's pretty good--Pairs4life can vouch for it

Vegetarian Chopped “Liver”
• 6 tablespoons oil
• 1 cup, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups eggplant
• 1 cup mushrooms
• Pickles, minced
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• 30 walnut halves
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Preparation:
1. Fry onions in oil until soft. Add vegetables, and fry until tender. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Put vegetables into a food processor. Add eggs and nuts. Process until smooth.

I'll vouch for it too -- it's excellent.

I'm going to be doing mashed potatoes a different way this year. This is a pretty big deal, and may cause a mutiny in our house but I've been experimenting with this method a bit and I think I got it nailed down.

The night before I'm going to bake a bunch of russet potatoes in the oven (just set on the racks unwrapped) and let them cool. I'm going to scoop out the insides and save them in a ziplock bag. I'll wrap the skins in paper towels and bag those as well. The next day I'll simmer some garlic in cream and butter in a pot, add S+P, and then dump in the potatoes from the night before to make the mash. I'll cut the skins into thin strips and deep fry them as a garnish to put on top of the potatoes.

I'm also considering just hanging the turkey on a rope over a fire pit to cook it, but my chicken experiments with this method have been erratic enough that I'm holding off on committing to this method. But there's a couple weeks left and I am hopeful.

I'm also considering just hanging the turkey on a rope over a fire pit to cook it

I do hope you're joking! A duck breast, maybe - I recall watching Jean-Louis Palladin do this a long time ago on one of the PBS Julia Child "Cooking with Master Chefs" series. A smallish chicken, or a Cornish hen, perhaps. But a turkey??

Jean-Louis Palladin and fireplace duck (there's a 1994 video within)

sundevilpeg wrote:

I'm also considering just hanging the turkey on a rope over a fire pit to cook it

I do hope you're joking! A duck breast, maybe - I recall watching Jean-Louis Palladin do this a long time ago on one of the PBS Julia Child "Cooking with Master Chefs" series. A smallish chicken, or a Cornish hen, perhaps. But a turkey??

Jean-Louis Palladin and fireplace duck (there's a 1994 video within)

I'm absolutely certain it can be done and that I can do it. Growing up our family's closest friends were Armenian, and the patriarch of that family cooked lamb over live fires in all sorts of different ways. It was sort of his thing, and it allowed him to sit by himself by a fire drinking all day. He regularly hung whole legs of lamb (in the 10 lb. range) over fires and cooked them.

Everyone thought he was a crazy and crotchety old guy (actually, he was), but he made some damn fine food and as a kid he was my first inspiration to get into cooking. Francis Mallmann also has a recipe for doing that as well as chickens in his new cookbook and that was what inspired me to start experimenting with the method again. I also realized that all of the schwenker rigs I've built recently work really well for this purpose too.

When you think about it, if you can cook a Cornish game hen or small chicken using the method there is absolutely no reason you can't cook a turkey - it will just take a lot longer (and use a lot more wood). I've successfully done 5-6 lb. chickens recently and am certain I can do a turkey, I'm just not confident that I can time it accurately. Most of the time that doesn't matter to me all that much, but on Thanksgiving it is very important. I am also considering just checking it 3-4 hours out from dinner and throwing it in the smoker if it seems to be cooking too slowly.

Attrill, if anyone can do this and make it transcendent, my money's on you. If you need any testers for trial runs, just let me know and I'll bring the whiskey!

Pie Lady,
I always, always wonder about corn pudding and how to make it deliciously. Do you recommend your recipe, and if so would you share it?

The drinks and appetizers wind up being mostly our lunch around here! I put them out a few hours after a hearty breakfast, and we nibble on them until the big meal is ready. annak, could you possibly summarize what the fellow said about them?

irisarbor, your family doesn't appreciate how darned lucky they are! Carrot soup shots sound wonderful.

And while we're at it, do you all have any favorite--preferably interesting/off-kilter--Thanksgiving wine pairings?

Mamgotcha, his idea was simply that stomach space is precious and that every bite matters; that therefore the bites should be carefully allotted to the special foods of Turkey day, especially those you rarely eat otherwise, and that appetizers are completely banal and interfere with truly enjoying Thanksgiving. Who needs a pedestrian cheese-board when there is stuffing from inside the bird to be savored? Why eat almonds when you need room for green beans almondine?

This seems to be our most recent Thanksgiving thread, so I hope you won't mind my asking this question here. We will be just three for Thanksgiving dinner. I would like to find the smallest turkey I can. Any suggestions? I know that the longer I wait, the harder it will be to find a non-monster-sized turkey. I also know that this Saturday and Sunday will be crazy at the grocery stores. I work at home, so I have the luxury of going out during the day tomorrow to shop, but not the luxury to stray too far from the Mundelein/Libertyville/Vernon Hills area. My grocery store options are Sunset, Mariano's, Jewel (aka the Jewels ), Garden Fresh Market, Aldi's, and if time permits, Fresh Farms Wheeling.

If I can't find a small turkey, I will probably fall back on buying a turkey breast and thighs separately. Sunset usually has both whole Hoka turkeys and Hoka turkey breasts around Thanksgiving. At least one other place around here (Garden Fresh?) has alsosold Hokas in previous years, though I didn't see it mentioned in this week's flyer.

Fresh Farms is usually where I get my HoKa turkey.

Hi,

I know some people are gluten free. There was a slideshow on Saveur with various menu ideas. This is a link to their Gluten Free Thanksgiving menu.

Regards,

There's something wrong with your link, Cathy2; maybe this one will work?

Gluten-free Thanksgiving from Saveur

And thanks... some of those look marvelous!