Yesterday's recipes

[mdlbear]

Yesterday involved a lot of food, so here are a menu and some recipes! These are in the order we prepared them.

First, my Mom's cranberry relish.

1. Start a day or two before -- it needs to sit in the fridge for at least 12 hours.
2. Use a food processor, or an old-fashoned meat grinder with a coarse plate, to chop up a pound of cranberries, one apple (cored and peeled), and one orange (not peeled).
3. Let it sit in the fridge until dinner time.

Next, the turkey. We got a 13-lb organic, fresh turkey -- the local Payless told us not to bother reserving one: they had plenty. I used the recipe on the wrapper with one slight mod from an earlier recipe.

1. Preheat oven to 400F. That's my mod -- the recipe said to use 325.
2. Coat the turkey with olive oil.
3. Rub with a mix of 2tsp each of ground black pepper, rubbed sage, and salt.
4. Put the turkey in the oven and turn it down to 325.

The skin came out wonderfully crisp and tasty.

Somewhere in there, the mashed potatoes.

1. Wash potatoes. Small Yukon Gold potatoes are best.
2. Cut them up if they're large.
3. Boil until soft.
4. Mash -- we used a hand mixer.
5. Optionally, add some broth.

Let people add butter, margerine, or whatever themselves -- everyone's taste is different.

Next, the dressing. This is Colleen's recipe. Measurements? What measurements?

1. Tear up a few pieces of bread. Sourdough that's almost but not quite stale is best; we used oat-nut, which was what we had.
2. Chop up an onion, a shallot, and some mushrooms. Saute in olive oil. (You can of course use butter, but one of us is allergic to dairy.)
3. Add some chopped roasted hazelnuts or walnuts, and a 1-pound bag of cranberries.
4. Pour in chicken, turkey, or vegetable stock and stir. Add the stock gradually so as not to make it too soggy.
5. Bake for about half an hour in an oiled glass baking pan.

Make the gravy.

1. While the dressing is cooking, chop up the neck and giblets, throw them into a small saucepan and boil.
2. After the turkey comes out, deglaze the roasting pan with a little white wine,
3. Combine with the giblets. It's simplest to dump the entire saucepan into the roasting pan rather than the other way around.
4. Thicken with flour, cornstarch, or arrowroot if desired.

That's my recipe; S actually made it yesterday, and cut lots of corners.

No prep needed for... Carrot sticks and pitted kalamata olives. We had jellied cranberry sauce, pickles, salad greens, fresh bread, and eggnog, but for one reason or another didn't use them.

We used almost exactly half the turkey, so the stuff we forgot wasn't missed. The YD made dinner for her family.

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Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Testimony to the wisdom of aging: an complete thanksgiving feast with hardly a recipe in sight.