(forgive the scheduling issue, all my fault)
So I am writing this on Thanksgiving, in the throes of a turkey-induced food coma. I didn’t cook, but I did purchase a dinner that, in the true American Tradition of Gluttony® was large enough to feed three. I will also cop to having a couple glasses of chardonnay, so I was out like a light by nine.
The funny part is that I am in general not a big fan of turkey- Thanksgiving is the only time I indulge. I am however a bog fan of the side dishes. I adore the various stuffings and mashed potatoes and vegetables. I may be the only person I know who gets excited at the prospect of brussels sprouts (my favorite way is from Two Hot Tamales’ Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Fnniger: slice them paper thin using a mandolin, sauté 3 to five minuted in butter and finish with a spritz of lime juice. even people who claim to hate brussels sprouts will be converts.)
The thing I did not indulge in but certainly will before the weekend is out is pie. Apple and pumpkin were always the tradition at my parents, home made of course. Apples came from the cold cellar, which had previously been used to store coal before heating oil became the fuel of choice. Each September we’d buy a bunch of apples from Atkins Farm in Hadley and they’d happily keep all winter down cellar (as we Yankees say) and apple pies were one of the happy result. Pumpkin was from a can, however, because, well because. There are just certain things that aren’t worth it when it comes right down to it. After having deveining, chopping and sautéing what seemed at the time and endless amount of spinach leaves only to end up with about three cups of home-made creamed spinach, only to be told by my diners they don’t like spinach, I’m all for taking help from the freezer aisle or the can.
I hope you all had a lovely turkey day- please share any of your recipes in the comments
I’m with you on pumpkin. I once made 2 pies and bought a pumpkin for one and used canned for the other. The canned pumpkin actually tasted better! So why bother cutting and roasting and mashing? And also did the crusts from scratch and compared to the rollout type (not the preformed one in shells!), and the scratch crust was only a teeny tiny bit better, so again, not worth the tons of extra work. This year I just made a very basic stuffing and a broccoli gratin – both were completely finished by the end of dinner.
Thanksgiving is not much of a holiday for me. Hating turkey doesn’t help. I do like brussel sprouts and your recipe sounds delicious. For a long time, I used to always confuse brussel sprouts and broccoli until a very dear friend told me call them what he does: “little trees” and “little cabbages”. It works! 😉
Tom, hope you’re recovered from your Thanksgiving feast by now. 🙂 I’m right there with you on the pie (must. have. pie. always). Speaking of spinach, my hubby makes a mean casserole using frozen spinach — it turns out great and is almost always completely eaten. I loved the green stuff as a kid; in the elementary school cafeteria, my table mates were always giving me the spinach off their trays. It’s a wonder I didn’t have green-tinted skin. Now I’m not a brussel sprouts fan but your recipe might just do the trick for me – – thanks!
Tom, I’m also not a big fan of turkey, though I can work my way through an entire bowl of stuffing in less than 7 minutes. For the past few years, whenever I haven’t made the trip to visit family, I’ve established a new tradition of indulging in a massive quantity of take out sushi on T-day, eaten while catching up on guilty pleasure television. Somewhat in keeping with that, this year I made bibimbap (yeah, so it’s Korean, and not raw, but it’s delicious non-western food, and I still don’t have to run the dishwasher three times in order to deal with the dinner aftermath).