I like a good old baked turkey. Many persons have taken to deep frying them - But, that's a no good.
We generally have thanksgiving with Mrs. cav's mom, who is allergic to turkey.
game hens stuffed with bits of orange, apple, bread soaked in olive oil, wine, diced onion, butter etc. a small roast beef stuffed with garlic cloves.
oysters on the half shell and haddock a la mikey.....
no details on the haddock thing, i see cav and jerry are writing a book,,,,,
we usually have turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes. I am the pumpkin soup cook, intil my mom took over that title for the last 2 years in a row......
This year I may or may not cook risotto.
Edgar - deep fried turkey is indeed delisious! How could you not agree?
I try to not eat much fried food.
Ah. But the whole turkey quick fried in super hot oil is sooooo good!
Perhaps - But aside from that I have a near fanatical belief that everything for Thanksgiving must be traditional. I only feel that strongly about this day and Christmas.
What was tradition was my family ... not my own small one, as my parents died when I was young, in my twenties, but later, my cousins let me into their circle and my husband gladly joined. I miss all that now, would be bemoaning my older self, but they miss it too, as the whole thing has broken up since I left.
Schnif.
I suppose this isn't all clear. Will explain sometime.
A wing and a prayer
U S News and World Report
Diversions 11/17/03
A wing and a prayer
By Thomas K. Grose
Come Saturday morning, eight New Yorkers will make a pilgrimage to CamaJe, a hip Manhattan restaurant, for a four-hour "Culinary Explorers" class taught by owner Abby Hitchcock. Their goal isn't to master the art of risotto con funghi or some other exotic dish. No, they've each paid $75 to learn to prepare a basic Thanksgiving dinner--how to roast a turkey, make stuffing and gravy and side dishes, and bake two kinds of pie: pumpkin and pecan.
Hitchcock's class sold out weeks ago; the waiting list could fill three more classes. And New Yorkers aren't the only eager pupils. Americans are flocking to cooking schools and kitchenware shops for a Thanksgiving primer. Classes range from a handful to 50-plus, and costs vary from $40 to $75.
Even in an era when Americans spend nearly half their food budget on dining out, folks want to do it themselves on Thanksgiving. And for good reason. "There was no mingling, there were no kids bouncing on couches," says Sandra Christ, 38, of Downers Grove, Ill., thinking back a few years when her extended family of 40 converged on a restaurant for turkey and the trimmings. "It was awful." As for gourmet carry-out, "If people could get away with it, they would," says Pam Anderson, author of CookSmart: Perfect Recipes for Every Day. "If you import the dinner, there are no smells."
But those homey scents aren't easy to come by. "Thanksgiving is the only time of the year you put something weighing 25 pounds in your oven," notes chef Rick Rodgers, author of Thanksgiving 101. That's a daunting task for those whose main cooking skill is warming up food in a microwave. Nor do Americans know much about turkeys, judging from recent calls to the Butterball hot line. One man asked if he could brush motor--instead of vegetable--oil on the skin.
Pushing pie. In Thanksgiving classes he teaches, Rodgers first reminds students that "nostalgia is the No. 1 ingredient." That means sticking to family favorites--even though the traditional dishes don't have much historic resonance. Staples like green-bean casserole and pumpkin pie were initially popularized by ads in women's magazines, Rodgers says. And turkey has become the entree of choice because it has more meat than a chicken.
That's little consolation to novices who fear the dreaded dried-out turkey. Sometimes the problem is the stuffing. Inside the gobbler, it takes longer to cook than the meat. And sometimes the problem is a nervous chef. When the plastic timer popped sooner than expected last year, New York sisters Colleen and Denise Flynn tested for doneness by cutting into the turkey to see if the juices ran clear, just as they were taught in their Culinary Explorers class. "Clear, pink, it's hard to tell," Colleen says. Back in the oven the turkey went for another 30 minutes. "It came out kind of dry," she admits. Luckily, they had also learned to make gravy.
Been there...done that....charged the same, heh heh.
Ooh, glad I'm not the only traditionalist there.
I don't have a set Christmas meal, so Thanksgiving is it. I do enjoy cooking all-out on that one day, weeks of leftovers.
I just bake the turkey, too, though I did it in a clay pot two years and that went pretty well. Nice and moist. (Keeping a turkey moist is always my issue, deep-frying is supposed to be great for that.)
SealPoet does an excellent deep-fried bird. Excellent.
Thanksgiving isn't as big a deal here as it is in the U.S.
If I had my druthers, I'd have duck, red cabbage, potato dumplings, a fruity oatmealy stuffing, brussels sprouts, and cranberry jelly (not sauce, nothing with recognizable cranberry bits in it - this is thanksgiving, i want it to be sort of traditional). And ginger ale.
This year, we were on the road for canajun thanksgiving, and I have no idea what we had. What town were we in? Manistique?
Apple Cornbread Stuffing recipe
The following is a delicious turkey stuffing that is easy for beginner cooks:
APPLE CORNBREAD STUFFING
By BumbleBeeBoogie
1/2 cup butter
1 tablespoon cooking oil
2 ribs celery, finely chopped
2 cups Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
3 quarts baked cornbread, crumbled
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted
1 large yellow onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
2 tablespoons fresh thyme, finely chopped
1/2 cup chicken stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Prepare and bake enough cornbread according to your recipe or package directions to equal 3 quarts, or buy commerically prepared cornbread.
Preheat the oven at 375 degrees F.
Spread the walnuts in a cookie sheet pan and toast them for about 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.
Heat a large saute pan over medium high heat. Add the butter and oil and saute the onion and celery until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic and thyme to the pan and continue to saute for one minute.
Add the apples and the chicken stock to the saute pan and bring the stock to a boil. Add the crumbled cornbread and the toasted walnuts, mixing well. Season with the salt and pepper. If the stuffing is too dry, add a little more stock to the mixture.
Spoon the stuffing into a baking pan or dish. Roast the stuffing, uncovered, in the oven for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the cornbread is lightly browned on top.
OPTIONAL SUBSTITUTIONS:
You may substitute pecans for the walnuts. I've also used sunflower seeds in place of nuts.
You may add dried cranberries or dried cherries to the stuffing mixture.
BBB
My favorite stuffing uses several types of fancy Italian-type breads... garlic, sourdough, asiago cheese, & whole wheat. For several years running the traditional stuffing here has had a yummy Italian flavor -- pork sausage with sage and nutmeg, sun-dried tomatoes, onions cooked in olive oil, pine nuts, plus apples & dried cranberries.
The rest of the traditional menu: mashed potatoes & gravy, sweet potatoes mashed with molasses, browned Brussels sprouts, green beans with bacon & onions, fresh cranberry sauce and festive hors d'oeurves & desserts.
Piffka
Piffka, your description is making me drool, a terrible sight.
It would be lovely to have everyone's favorite stuffing recipe posted here. I could even dig up some of my more elaborate fancy stuffings in addition to the simple one I posted.
Its fun to watch adults try to remember and create favorite family holiday dishes remembered from their childhood days.
BBB
Thanks, BBB. The smells (real or imagined) that emanate from kitchens on Thanksgiving are nearly all drool-producing!
I admit I think some of the traditional foods are best left out. If my brother comes to dinner, he will want creamed corn fixed as my mother used to make it. I think it is sort of disgusting: melt some butter & cook an equal amount of flour in it, blend some canned evaporated milk, then a can or two of "good" creamed corn and heat through. Yuck. That's it... he loves it!
My sister-in-law had a strange canned green bean dish for Thanksgiving that involved creamed soup & dried onion rings.
Piffka
Piffka, that green bean dish was invented by the makers of the canned fried onion rings to boost sales. It became a national Thanksgiving dish.
BBB
