Thanksgiving 2014

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, and another terrific meal was had in the company of family.

As much as I love to try different things, Thanksgiving is the one holiday that I don't want to mess with too much; everyone has an expectation of what should be served, and to not meet those expectations seems like a sacrilege I am not willing to undertake. So turkey and all the trimmings it is...

The meal, of tried and true standards, along with a new recipe of two, was as follows:

• A 24 pound fresh Butterball turkey, simply prepped and roasted in a Reynolds oven bag. I have gone to a lot more trouble with turkeys over the years, brining and basting and trying all sorts of different things, but you really can't beat the combination of ease and great moist turkey that you get doing it this way. Turkey. Bag. A little butter and oil. Salt and pepper. Sage and rosemary. Throw it in the oven at 350 degrees and forget it for 3 hours. With gravy of course.
• A spiral carved ham. Adding a little pork to the festivities never hurts. A good store bought one requiring no effort other than to pull off slices and put it on the platter.
• Stuffing - a new recipe this year; an Anne Burrell online recipe for cornbread and sausage stuffing. This was better than other cornbread stuffings I have tried. It had the usual homemade and dried out cornbread and sausage meat, but these with a combination of walnuts and dried cranberries made for an excellent dish. Between this and the Bobby Flay mushroom stuffing we did last year, there are now two stuffing recipes I would gladly make again.
• Mashed potatoes - The classic. Five pounds of yukon golds, milk, butter, salt and pepper. Grace would eat a huge bowl of this and nothing else for dinner if we would let her.
• Sweet potatoes and apples - Much like I need to try a new stuffing recipe every year, Amparo needs to tinker with with the obligatory sweet potato dish. This year was a great one; boiled and sliced sweet potatoes (like a gratin prep) and sliced apples in a sweet sauce, layered and baked. Yum. Better than mashed potatoes, whipped sweet potatoes and everything mashed...
• Cranberry sauce - Homemade from Jasper White's Cooking from New England. A simple cranberry, caramel, orange and ginger recipe that I have been making for close to 20 years now I guess. Grace loves this too.
• Corn.
• Green beans.
• Chardonnays, Rieslings and a Cotes du Rhone
• A bunch of different desserts courtesy of Brother Dave and his Darling Wife.

Thanksgiving, as intended, is a time to be thankful for the gifts we have, and I am luckier than most, and far more blessed than I deserve. It is a joy to be surrounded by family, eat some good food, watch a little football, and reflect on things. Thanksgiving no longer comes without a twinge of sadness, however, as it is the reminder that it has been 4 years since Dad passed. Four years ago today we laid him to rest. I remember, and I am thankful.

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving was at our house this year, with Mom and Chris, Dave, Lori, Sarah, Greta and Hailey joining us for a late afternoon dinner.

Grace has been enjoying her subscription to the Food Network Magazine this year, and the November issue was loaded with good looking recipes. We like to try different things as much as possible for most of the side dishes, so we ended up selecting about half the dinner out of that one magazine.

The Meal:

• Turkey - A 22 pound Butterball fresh turkey simply roasted with salt, pepper, butter and oil in a Reynolds oven baking bag. Honestly, I hate cooking turkeys and want as little to do with them as possible. The bag cooking is a no-brainer and leaves the turkey almost infallibly moist and juicy.
• Gravy - Simple pan dripping gravy (with Heinz jar backup)
• Cranberry sauce - Cranberry Relish, Jasper White's Cooking From New England (HarperPerennial, 1989), page 341. I have been making this every time we have made Thanksgiving dinner for as long as I can remember. Sugar (caramelised), cranberries, orange, lemon and ginger. Best made the day before.
• Stuffing - Bobby Flay's Wild Mushroom Bacon Sourdough Dressing. November 2013 Food Network Magazine, page 165. We try a new stuffing recipe most years, and this was perhaps my favorite in recent years.
• Sweet potatoes - Whipped Sweet Potatoes and Bananas with Honey. November 2013 Food Network Magazine, page 157.
• Roasted Potatoes with Sage. Recipe #47 in the "50 Side Dishes" insert booklet of the November 2013 Food Network Magazine. This is a four sentence recipe that couldn't possibly be easier.
• Peas and Corn.

Everything came out well, with surprisingly little last-minute-scramble. It was nice to have everyone together for the holiday. The only down side was that Mom ended the evening not feeling very well and that cut the day short. She's doing fine now, which is terrific, but it did call a fairly abrupt end to the evening (for my side of the family). As the crowd was getting ready to leave, Amparo's sister and her family arrived for round two, and to stay for the weekend. It's very nice to have a bunch of family in the house.