Posted on 11/02/2017 4:05:32 PM PDT by Jamestown1630
Thanksgiving is a time when people don’t seem to want ‘new’ - they want ‘traditional’, the food they’ve always associated with the holiday. But it’s also an opportunity to slip in at least one new and different dish, to perhaps broaden your guests’ gustatory horizons – and give the cook a little diversity in the annual labors ;-)
My first introduction to anything vaguely ‘Indian’ was this Hot Curried Fruit that my Aunt used to make for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It seems to be a somewhat traditional ‘thing’ in Virginia and parts South; and whenever I’ve made it for office parties, people have wanted the recipe for something easy to take to the extended-family Thanksgiving, or to a potluck. There are many variations on it – you can use different mixtures of canned fruit – but here is Taste of Home’s version, which is typical of those that I’ve seen:
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/hot-curried-fruit
Many decades ago, when I was responsible for cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner - and the first to entertain my brother’s new bride - I wanted to do something different with plain old green peas. Somewhere, I had found a “hot cheese sauce” for vegetables, and used it with frozen green peas and pearl onions. The recipe makes 1-1/2 cups, and of course you can multiply the ingredients to suit the amount of steamed peas and pearl onions - or other vegetables - that you will need for your guests.
Hot Cheese Sauce for Vegetables
Heat ½ C. milk and 1 8-oz. package of cream cheese over low heat, stirring until smooth.
Blend in ½ tsp. Onion salt and ¼ C. Parmesan Cheese.
-JT
Just a tip learned in the past several years. Tomato Juice in your beef stew: substitute spicy V8 instead. There is plenty of ZIP in that ! :-)
Oh yes! Soft White bread, mayo, turkey, and lettuce. Nowadays we know that’s not healthy, but it doesn’t taste right any other way. Yummm...I have an alternative method where I put the turkey, hot gravy, mayo, and lettuce in a tortilla. I’ve been rolling things in flour tortillas for over 40 years now, long before someone named them “wraps”!
When I was single, my mom would give me left over turkey and turkey fat to take home! I would make gravy with the fat and heat the leftover turkey in it and serve it over two pieces of bread - usually white. Hot turkey open face sandwich which to this day is popular in NYC diners. Delicious (and not too healthy either.)
“We had to be careful with home canned green beans”
How come? I canned a lot of green beans this summer ..... hope they’ll be ok
I husband liked to do those grilled foil packets on the barbecue. We haven’t done them in years though! Thanks for the reminder. They were good, easy, and cleanup was a breeze.
Yum, that sounds good! I’m ready to make a turkey now - Maybe I’ll buy two, one to share with guests and one to hoard for ourselves :-)
The turkey fat reminded me that the last time I made chicken stock we ended up with a whole Lotta fat at the top. I skimmed that off and froze it. Thinking I might add a dollop or two to a soup or stew. Now where is that in my freezer…
Best thing about foil packets? Clean up! :)
Sometimes I cheat and do just cut potatoes, onions, carrots and other veggies (no meat or fish) with salt, pepper and a few herbs/seasonings. Those are good, too.
ALUMINUM FOIL = a cook’s best friend. :-)
That’s the thing to do! Two is better than one.
All that fat can be put to many good uses.
The chicken fat is great as shortening for dumplings, if you’re making something like Chicken and Dumplings. I always save it.
If you used a pressure cooker, I'm sure they will be fine. And if not they could anyway. But they should be heated at boiling for 10 minutes (you can look it up). Don't want to give bad advice to anyone.
Oh ok! No I use a pressure cooker for all low-acid foods. It would scare me to Do otherwise. However tomatoes confuse me because every website says they are acidic YET the instructions always say to add lemon juice. Yuck! So I pressure can those as well, ruining the fresh tomato taste. But that’s better than lemony.
I do a couple things the USDA doesn’t recommend. I have canned bacon. Turned out fine and we are alive. I also use Tattler lids. They are common all over Europe, yet our government has a lot more stringent rules. Just like with non-pasteurized milk and cheeses made from them.
I do find it interesting that the more socialist, heavy-handed government countries in Europe are more lenient with their food rules. Perhaps the French would rebel if they couldn’t get their exquisite cheeses any longer.
I ordered some monk fruit sweetener, which is 4 times sweeter than sugar, no carbs or calories. Anyone know if you can ever get the stuff to dissolve?
I’ve been making the same side dishes for Thanksgiving and Christmas for forty years. While my family would be okay with me ADDING to the menu, if I took AWAY any of the sides, they would be aghast.
I’m not familiar with it, but maybe it needs hot water to dissolve?
It seems you can also buy it in liquid form.
I think that’s generally the case - people like the food to stay the same, and they really look forward to it ;-)
My experience has been that people who don’t like turkey, usually complain that it is dry as dust, which it can be, if you roast it in an open pan until it looks like a Norman Rockwell picture. I always cook it covered, with an open vent. It still gets brown, but not dry. Putting it in a cooking bag helps, too. I’ve never brined one, because almost every one you buy has been injected with 7-15 % salt and sugar solution. One thing I’ve noticed, though -— every turkey I buy tastes exactly the same. Same with most chicken. I might try one that’s been raised free range this year, or at least on a small organic farm. All the rest are fed exactly the same food, for uniformity, at the factory farms. Boring!
Yup. My uncle can make a turkey sit up and beg, but I usually go with duck for a holiday meal. :) Roasted chicken with herbs and butter is my usual poultry thing, but it’s rare for me to spring for a free-range bird. I finally got my hands on a decent fixer-upper chicken coop and am hoping for Real Live homegrown chicken next year, if I’m brave enough to kill one or two. :)
Would love to buy some chicks, but we had guineas once, and my husband got tired of messing with them. We might just buy a turkey chick or two next year, though. Too late to do it this year, for Thanksgiving.
Thanks. I’ll look that up.
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