Welcome to November! Halloween is over and you are still picking through the leftover Halloween candy, hoping to find an overlooked Snickers bar, or even a Buttterfinger. Shame! You should be doing more than ripping out your fillings with someone else’s candy. You should be planning for Thanksgiving. Pull up a chair, bite into a nice cool Honeycrisp apple, and start your journey.
We are meeting in the middle this year for Thanksgiving. We found a town that is a five-hour drive for all concerned and have rented a house large enough for six adults and an energetic two-year-old. The email exchange about the menu assignments started yesterday. Already claimed are the turkey, stuffing, pecan pie, and a sweet potato casserole.
It should be an interesting meal this year: three households, three sets of traditions, new family members, a rental house with unknown kitchen equipment, and the spirited adventure of a holiday road trip. We are tiptoeing around gingerly, not wanting to offend, or commandeer the process, even though we have cooked an inordinate number of Christmas and Thanksgiving meals involving turkeys over the years. But maybe this year we can step away from our martyred position in front of the stove, and finally see what all the football fuss is about. I also understand there is a little parade held annually in New York City…
Food52, which is always my go-to food website, has already published their handy-dandy Thanksgiving check list. You should go there first, because they are smarter and wiser than anyone else I know. Except for my friend Maura, who has already advised buying a disposable turkey pan, because really, who wants to spend time schlepping and then scrubbing the good turkey roasting pan? “Leave it home,” she has advised. That is my new Thanksgiving mantra, “Leave it home.”
Thanks you Amanda and Merrill, once again, for organizing the day: https://food52.com/thanksgiving/menu-genie
Fall is the perfect time for trying different apples, and these are some apple recipes I will be practicing before the big day. Teddie’s Apple Cake, and Judy Rodgers’ Roasted Applesauce (and Savory Apple Charlottes).
I just listened to Amanda Hesser on a podcast new to me – Cooking with the Moms from November 2010 – where she extolled the virtues and versatility of Teddie’s Apple Cake. It is fabulous for dessert, and even good for breakfast, which puts it into the Food Friday Pizza Pantheon of Meals to Master. Anything I can cook for dinner (or Thanksgiving) and use again at breakfast is a gold-plated winner in my book! https://food52.com/recipes/19828-teddie-s-apple-cake. (It is Episode 125 of Cooking with the Moms: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/cooking-with-the-moms/id279215207?mt=2) Here is something new I learned about Amanda Hesser – she believes in dessert at every meal. What a fabulous, forward thinker!
This is another Thanksgiving dinner item I thought this might be a clever alternative to my basic Mott’s applesauce recipe – wherein I stir just enough (and sometimes just a little bit too much) cinnamon into a pretty bowl of jarred applesauce, and plop it on the table. This will look as if I care just a wee bit more than usual: https://food52.com/recipes/14948-judy-rodgers-roasted-applesauce-and-savory-apple-charlottes
Bon Appétit Magazine is another resource I rely upon, often. They are almost as friendly as our friends at Food52 although they keep pushing roasted Brussels sprouts recipes on me, and I will not have any of it! https://www.bonappetit.com/collection/thanksgiving
Here is their apple recipe I will be testing, since I can make it ahead of time, and toss it merrily into the back seat as we drive over a couple of rivers to Thanksgiving dinner: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/salted-butter-apple-galette-with-maple-whipped-cream
Last year, The Washington Post collected some recipes for dishes that can be made ahead of time, and one suspects, tossed merrily into your back seat. (They also had an article about Thanksgiving traffic which I have chosen to ignore.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2015/11/15/thanksgiving-menu-make-ahead-recipes/
The Post also had a list of vegetarian menu items which might come in handy, because you never know who will be coming through the woods to your Thanksgiving celebration. We all remember the year the Pouting Princess came home from college, and was a newly fledged (albeit temporary) vegetarian. We all watched with horror as she poured a lake of turkey gravy into the volcano of mashed potatoes she had fashioned on her plate. She gobbled (sorry) up that plate of potatoes, commenting that they were the best potatoes she had ever had. Thanksgiving does that to people. Nonetheless, be prepared: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/vegetarian-dishes-for-a-thanksgiving-table-that-welcomes-everyone/2015/11/14/f8c035aa-87d9-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html?tid=hybrid_collaborative_2_na
And finally, the apple pie, à la Mode, of course. The best use of apples, ever: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12320-apple-pie
“Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.”
-Jane Austen
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