Thanksgiving Recap

Okay, one last Thanksgiving post before we move on to new culinary adventures. Two items on our menu are headed for the family cookbook after all. And besides, we need a debrief.

Cranberries

The cranberry sauce was divine. I've been enjoying it with my turkey sandwiches for lunch ever since the big event. On the side though, not in my sandwiches. I was college when I first heard about putting cranberry sauce on turkey sandwiches. Must be an east coast thing. Regardless, it never happened in our house.

Here's a sneak peak at the cranberry sauce recipe that my mom has adapted in recent years...one can practically taste the vitamin C (in a good way):

1 lb Fresh Cranberries
1 C sugar
Juice and zest from 1 orange
Juice and zest from 1 lime
Juice and zest from 1 lemon

1. Dissolve sugar with the citrus zest and juices in a saucepan over medium heat.


2. When sugar is fully dissolved, add the cranberries, turn heat down a bit and simmer 10 minutes until the cranberries are just popping open.

Onions
These turned out okay. Last Thursday, they were a bit overwhelmed by the plethora of other eats. Besides, Kelly's creamed onions were to die for. Though on their own as leftovers, they've been scrumptious. I just finished the last of them tonight.

I ended up making them in advance just as Mom suggested. I got to the part in the recipe before they are cooked for 1 1/2 hours and need to be basted every 15-20 minutes. I knew I didn't have the heart to spend all that time basting onions with guests in our small house.

Pies
Pie pastry for the pumpkin pie was made from scratch via Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. But I got a great tip from the Splendid Table episode that I listened to the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Lynne Rossetto Kasper said that pastry comes together best when the ingredients (dry + fat) are frozen. Whatever the recipe, she keeps baggies of pre-measured ingredients in her freezer (and she has several on hand at all times). When the time comes for pie or tart, all you need to do is follow the rest of the recipe and add the liquids. I just love this and the pastry came out with better luck than usual. I enjoyed the process because I took my time instead of trying to force everything too quickly. It was a lot easier having taken two days off work to savor and enjoy the turkey day preparations.

Everyone seemed to have a great time and we definitely ate and drank well. My husband (the DJ) and his family like to spend time together more than they like food, which makes everything fun and stress free. It sure went by with the wink of an eye. Weeks, days and hours of preparation fly by in an afternoon. And have I mentioned the sunny Seattle weather we were blessed with for most of last week?

Side Dishes from Sisters In-Law

My sister in-law Kelly made the most fabulous side dishes for Thanksgiving. YUM, they were my favorites of the day: Brussel Sprouts and Creamed Onions.

Sisters in-law must be known for their onions. Mom's onions come from her sister in-law, Gege. I was convinced that my other aunt had a creamed recipe, but turns out her onions are one and the same as Gege's. Then my sister in-law shows up with the creamed onions. They were delish! Turns out the recipe is from Epicurous and you can find it here: GRATINEED MUSTARD CREAMED ONIONS. A note from Kelly: "it's a little heavy on the mustard; cut back a bit."

And then there were her bright chartreuse brussel sprouts, that was I was convinced had been blanched first to retain the vibrant color. Not according to their source, also Epicurious. BRUSSELS SPROUT HASH WITH CARAMELIZED SHALLOTS are a keeper!

Is the Cooking Gene Passed Down?

My love of cooking came early on, though I really didn't start pursuing it on my own until after college. It's a shared love with my mother, so I assume it passed down through her. But in the case of my grandmother, it definitely "skipped" a generation. Mom must have picked it up from her grandmothers with whom she spent a lot of time and they certainly had more maternal instincts than my grandmother.

My grandmother was an interesting woman. She didn't cook, but somehow I have recipes that come from her for the cookbook. Maybe she farmed them out as far as the work was concerned, I dunno... will have to do some research.

Since we're on the topic of Thanksgiving and my grandmother, here's a story that has always fascinated me. Though she didn't cook, my grandmother brought the mashed potatoes....the instant kind. When she was getting older, I'd go over to her place and help her with the work of making the instant mashers the day before--Mom always whispered something about her being too weak to stir the mixture. I think it was all a ruse from my mom to have me spend some quality time with her while on trips home from college or out of state.

Gaga's instant potatoes lasted until my aunt and family moved back to town and were next up to host Thanksgiving. No way were instant mashers acceptable at her house. A concept I fully get now, but at the time it made me sad. Since my grandmother refused to make real potatoes, my aunt nixed potatoes altogether for Thanksgiving. At the time, mashed potatoes were my all time favorite food--instant or real--so this was devastating.

I loved mashed potatoes so much that one year back in the 80's, I even insisted on keeping my invite to Thanksgiving at the home of the high school sweetheart because his family was having them even though I'd dumped the day before. This was before my grandmother and her daughter-in-law had the potato war. My mom had decided to turn Thanksgiving that year into a sandwich buffet (no potatoes). I selfishly cared more about potatoes than the feelings of my ex. I don't think I even know who that girl is anymore and just thinking about that god-awful day breaks my heart.

But back to my grandmother. Ever since what I'm now calling "The Potato War," Gaga's contribution to Thanksgiving was the largest round of Brie cheese I'd ever seen. Not a bad trade off, I suppose.

Turkey Day Menu

• Cranberry Goat Cheese Spread
  with crackers
• Spiced Pecans
• Cheese Crackers
  not Lainey's recipe I'll use in the cookbook, but a close second, because I have the dough on hand
  
• 2 Herb-Rubbed Turkeys
  on 2 grills one gas, one charcoal, oh and brined overnight...
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
  not an ounce of butter is used in the making of these french style pomme de terres
• Gege's Thanksgiving Onions
• Giblet Gravy
• Rummed Yams
  from my friend Liz, the most amazing yam side dish ever
• Cranberry Sauce
  also serving canned cranberry gel--I love that shit
• Pumpkin Pie
  w/ homemade whip cream, of course

The in-laws are bringing:

• More starters
• Stuffing
• Green vegetable side dish
• More pies
• Bob's lasagna (it's a tradition the 3 sisters in-law roll their eyes at, but I condone)
• Rolls
• Lots of wine (I friggin hope so)

Oh, I'm also thinking of starting the afternoon off with vodka gimlets--just to get everyone in the mood. But really because I recently read Julie Powell's book (Julie/Julia Project) and I can't stop thinking about them.

My husband's 5 siblings who live in the area and their families are joining us... And I hope my friend Cathy who is flying in from New York to meet up with her Seattle-based beau will stop by for a drink or dessert...and maybe another Seattle holiday orphan when he gets off the air at 6. we'll see.

Believe it or not, I actually wanted to cook more of the menu, being the foodie control freak that I am (thanks mom)... but that's a little too obsessive. Mom did give me a great tip when I mentioned this desire of how she handles the situation of not getting to have everything she wants for Thanksgiving...(especially when other cooks are involved and insist on items such as green bean casserole). She says the week before/after Thanksgiving, she'll cook side dishes that aren't on the menu, so she can get her taste of them. What a great idea...sort of like a slow paced food marathon of your own personal holiday treats. I never knew she did this.

WWAD?

The onion post got me thinking of a feature for the cookbook. WWAD=What Would Ann Do. Ann's my mom. For recipes that SHE would make in advance, I can add a note on how. Accompanying the note would be a WWAD icon.


Note to self: have Graphics Girl (my sister who doesn't know it yet, but she'll be my image person for the cookbook) come up with an icon for WWAD feature.

Onions

Have Gege's family onion recipe in hand. Just got off the phone with mom...who I haven't told I'm revising the cookbook project just yet. I thought the recipe was from Lainey's family, but it's the other aunt. It's probably the easiest thing I'll make for Thanksgiving, basically just putting a bunch of peeled/parboiled onions in a casserole pan, throwing over a sauce of melted butter and sugar and cooking them for as long as possible--about 1 1/2 hours. Mom and I had an interesting back and forth about making ahead and reheating. She almost over abuses the make ahead concept. What's the point of getting the oven going twice, if there isn't a lot of heavy lifting to begin with? I'll go as far as getting the onions and sauce in the pan beforehand but will wait until Thursday to put in the oven.... she didn't like that idea.

Anyway, it will be my first "official" recipe test. Sure, I've cooked many of the cookbook recipes before, but not with the eye for testing and actually writing them out the way they should (or the way I think they should) appear in a cookbook.

Thanksgiving

Still haven't started on the cookbook yet, my excuse is all the planning for Thanksgiving and installing 8 new windows. Actually, there probably aren't a lot of family T-Day recipes for the cookbook. Everything was pretty standard. I'll add my aunt's onion recipe... oh and perhaps her cheese crackers. I'll have to see if I have that onion recipe in my cookbook folder or if I need to call mom for that. In fact, I still have to dust off that cookbook folder.

My mom and my aunts (Lainey and Gege) were super pros at the holidays. Only they were allowed in the kitchen...and it's still true to this day. They zoom in like caterers, most of the work already finished, the work divided up neatly in advance. By the time we sat down for pie at the end of the night, the kitchen was immaculate. My Uncle Bill, gets kudos for helping out in this respect. He and my mom are obsessed with cleanliness and do a lot of hard work to make their homes spotless...must be the German genes.

We are hosting about 16 for Thanksgiving. After two years with NO TURKEY (criminal) and a Christmas without red meat (really? spaghetti & meatballs is less work than roasting a hunk of meat? really?), we are having 2 turkeys. TWO! One on the charcoal BBQ and one on the gas grill. And the best part is that the oven will be free.

We test drove a turkey coated with a Bobby Flay inspired rub on the Weber kettle a couple of weeks ago. It was divine. We are still eating leftovers: almost a dozen turkey sandwiches, turkey noodle soup, and the freezer is loaded with turkey stock which simmered for 10 hours, and some turkey meat that will go towards burritos later in the month.

I'll post our menu when I finalize it later today...

Committment

Commitment--it has clearly escaped me on this project. After reading several blogs and memoirs lately, I've been inspired to do some writing of my own. Curious about the whole blogging craze, wanting to know more about how I could design my own, but most importantly the desire to start working on my project have placed me in full cookbook writing and blogging gear.

Like many, my childhood memories are linked closely with cooking and food. What better way to preserve the centerpieces of family celebrations than to put them together in cookbook. Someday (perhaps in 2008), it will be the Christmas gift I give my sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles. Actually, about 5 years ago, I began the process of collecting recipes and talking about the idea with my mom. On that same trip home, my now-husband proposed. I spent the next year planning our (see hon, I can say "our") wedding. Then the next year, I was busy and overwhelmed with a job I absolutely abhorred, we bought a house and moved. One thing led to another and the cookbook project was postponed.

My cookbook project interest is waxing these days (I think I've been reading too many cookbooks and books about food). The idea behind the blog is to try out my thoughts that will go between the recipes as I follow my self through the process and giving me the commitment kick in the pants I need and deserve.