I've been home for a couple of weeks, which means that I have had time to start obsessing about Thanksgiving Dinner...We don't do anything too big, just us and maybe a friend or two (this year, our pal Shaboo from Charlotte is coming), but I like to cook it up like there's no tomorrow.
The typical Thanksgiving includes me running around Oakland and Berkeley the Wednesday before, trying to find that last container of buttermilk for my knock-'em-dead biscuits (let's just say they were a hit with Leona's sister-in-law in Atlanta...), and then I cook all Thursday so that by the time dinner is ready my tongue is hanging out & I can't enjoy a thing.
I've got a new plan for this year--buying non-perishables last week and this coming week, and then I plan to hit the grocery story around 10:30 am on Tuesday before Thanksgiving to get the fresh stuff. And I'm going to start cooking & baking early too, so that there's just a minimum of preparations needed on Thursday itself.
Here's our menu:
* Game hens (with stuffing, if I get my way, Leona's not that excited about that prospect)
* Collard greens
* Mashed sweet potatoes
* Mac-n-cheese (an awesome recipe--so delicious I could eat the whole pan)
* Buttermilk biscuits
* Pecan pie
* Pumpkin cream cookies (a new recipe from Real Simple--it looks awesome)
Wish me luck!
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4 comments:
Luck, Luck, Luck.
Please share your biscuit recipe (unless of course, it's a trade secret). I love a good biscuit! I love when they're light, flaky, crusty on the outside and fluffy on the inside.
Pam and I usually spend Thanksgiving with our birth families and get together on the Friday after to share leftovers (and sometimes shopping).
For the past several years we've relied on an upscale supermarket for our Thanksgiving dinner. As a result our meal had become somewhat soul-less. This year we're turning things around and cooking the entire meal from scratch. Ease and time-savings be damned! I plan to make a few vegetarian side dishes (possible options: ginger walnut broccoli, shitake slaw, quinoa cherry edamame salad, sage butternut and sweet potato). I hope my mom makes her specialty dishes: mac and cheese and homemade cranberry sauce and; my sister's specialty: cornbread custard, greens and jello mold. Of course, there will be turkey, ham, and my favorite -- sausage stuffing and giblet gravy.
I've got to get mhy eating pants ready.
i know this is not a popular opinion, but I have never really liked Thanksgiving. When I was a kid, my grandma would sometimes make me something special (like french fries or fried chicken) because I don't like Turkey, stuffing, or any of the other usual thanksgiving treats. Although I too love a good biscuit!! After my grandma died, my aunt would make me fried chicken when the family would get together, although after my grandma died the family get-togethers were a lot less frequent. As for our Thanksgivings here in Boston, Kevon usually will cook or buy something from Whole Foods and we just spend the day being lazy. However, my brother might come up from Philadelphia this year so we might do something more formal. I NEVER cook on Thanksgiving...i do not really enjoy cooking so I try to avoid it.
Good luck Kathy on a great Thanksgiving dinner!!
I will email the biscuit recipe your way--it's not a trade secret, it's from an awesome cookbook called Cookwise by Shirley Corriher. She goes into all the science behind food (like how different flours and fats work together in baking--but she talks chicken and other things, I just never really get past the baking part).
She's also got an awesome lemon curd recipe in there--if I had the patience I'd make that to go with the biscuits for a sweet breakfast, but I usually just buy some at Trader Joe's...completely satisfying!
My uncle told me how to make a perfect boiled egg with a cookbook that instructed with food science (Here's the secret: put cold egg in cold salted water on medium heat. When water begins to boil remove from heat. Cover pot tightly with a tea towel. Let sit several minutes. The egg comes out beautifully tender with a sunrise orange yolk that's just cooked).
Kath, I made the Portuguese Kale Soup this weekend (Ms. Leona Beasley ordered it when we were together last) -- it was easy and delicious. It's seems so healthy I felt like I was mainlining vitamins and minerals.
Gemini72, I totally respect your food idiosyncracies. Aint nothin wrong with a piece of crispy well-seasoned fried chicken. I'm not mad at 'cha.
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