Posted on 11/01/2019 5:28:12 PM PDT by Jamestown1630
I originally began this cooking thread because – during my many years as a ‘lurker’ here before signing up – I greatly enjoyed the annual Thanksgiving cooking threads that I would see. (Somewhere on my hard drive, I’m sure I have many Freeper recipes that were posted over the years before I officially arrived on the scene.)
Now, the holiday season is getting into gear, and Thanksgiving is on the near horizon once again. Please share with us your family favorites, traditions, and your memories of this very American of holidays.
We’ve noted many times before that people really don’t like Thanksgiving to ‘change’ - we enjoy, and enjoy looking forward to, the traditional family specialties that we have always relished on that day. But I encountered a potato recipe that some of you might find interesting as a slight change-up to your annual fare - (and who said you can have only one kind of potato dish, anyway?)
Here, Chef John of Food Wishes, presents his rendition of Potatoes Romanoff:
https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2019/10/potatoes-romanoff-this-didnt-stay-in.html
My husband and I were thrilled with the first wet-brined turkey that we made many years ago – but that was before we discovered dry-brining. We have used the Russ Parsons method for several years now, and it results in the best turkeys that we’ve roasted.
Here is the Parsons Method (also known as 'The Judy Bird'):
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I recently lost a very stubborn 15 pounds that always seem to creep up on me over time, by following a very low-carb diet. One of my favorite dishes for Thanksgiving is the ubiquitous Green Bean Casserole, and we found this recipe from 'Dot2Trot' for a low-carb version. Haven’t tried it yet, but it looks more promising than a lot of others we have seen. (As of the last time she posted the numbers, Dot had lost 145 pounds on the low-carb diet, and her website and YouTube channel have a lot of really good recipes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP_lTI7Ji2I
(The painting at the start of this post is entitled ‘Home for Thanksgiving', and was painted by Anna Mary Robertson - “Grandma’ - Moses):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Moses
-JT
https://www.foodandwine.com/news/turkey-size-thanksgiving-survey-whole-foods “How Big Is Your Turkey? Most Americans Pick This Smaller Size, Says Survey”
Nothing is a better buy than a cheap-o holiday frozen turkey. I dig through to find the largest bird and freeze the leftovers. Don’t forget to boil the carcass for stock/broth later in the year. I added some of last year’s stock to make broccoli and cheese soup on this chilly day, yum.
You’re so right-—no difference. Farmers do not “grow” baby carrots.
Back in the ‘80s, supermarkets would only purchase the most perfect looking carrots.
Due to the lack of demand, most of the ill-formed carrots were simply thrown away, according to the Carrot Museum.
One farmer threw a few batches into an industrial green bean cutter.
They sliced up nicely into uniform 2-inch pieces, then he ran them through a potato peeler to smooth them out.
Marketed to groceries as “baby carrots” they were an instant hit.....and became a snack sensation.
Today, baby carrots make up nearly 70 percent of all carrot sales, as carrots in general are the seventh-most consumed fresh vegetable in the U.S.
Most baby carrots in supermarkets today are sliced versions of the Imperator variety, a type of carrot that farmers plant closely together, forcing them to grow long and thin, thus making them easier to shape into baby carrots, according to the USt Dept of Agriculture.
I believe “sifting” evolved from the cook finding lumps in her flour-—lumps formed from old-time packaging, transportation and shelving bags of flour.
Today the mechanization is more advanced.....so flour lumps are not as common.
I’ve seen accomplished cooks like Martha Stewart just stir the flour measurement with a fork....”just in case.”
Funny they don’t taste like regular carrots, though. They taste weak, to me. The long, big ones you buy in the two pound bags are darker and richer. Or maybe it’s just me. I did figure they made the “baby” ones out of pared down longer ones, though. I didn’t think they would waste all that land, effort and production costs on growing carrots til they were the right “baby” size. Thanks for the info! :)
There’s different varieties......all with their own taste.
My Grandma who taught me to love cooking, always sifted so I do too.
Over the decades when I didn’t sift to save time the product didn’t come out as light and fluffy. I always figure the actual amount of flour in a recipe was more than necessary. Sifting fixed that.
Thx for the info!
Turkey today at my local Harris Teeter was 37 cents/lb!
Found this out as I was checking out.
I cook the family Thanksgiving dinner except the turkey and at this point I have no more room in my freezers. If I did I would have done the turkey this year.
The best carrot I ever ate was consumed about a minute after it came out of the ground and had enjoyed a quick swish in water, on a farm on Maryland’s Bay Hundred.
(I seem to recall a tradition that corn is best boiled as soon as you cut it, and just long enough to recite The Lord’s Prayer. That doesn’t seem long enough to me, unless your prayer is very slow and meditative..)
But:
I think carrots are at their best right out of the ground.
I’m not sure that ‘sifting’ in our old-fashioned sense is the same as what some of these flour providers offer in their ‘many times sifted’ flours. They probably have all kinds of machinery that processes the flour much more finely than we can at home.
Here’s an interesting blog post about why White Lily is, and remains, so popular:
https://www.southernkitchen.com/articles/eat/why-southerners-are-obsessed-with-white-lily-flour
I am not really enamoured of the roasted bird. I enjoy it as a centerpiece, and its leftovers for future casseroles. (My crew would really always prefer to have a nice, big Ham; and that’s what we will probably do - maybe an easy Turkey Breast, on the side.)
I Give Thanks for all the wonderful sides, appetizers, drinks that we enjoy at Thanksgiving; and the great excuse we’re given to prepare them.
Amen.
Isn’t it marvelous how sweetcorn keeps so well. I remember when if you kept it more than 2 days, it was no good to eat.
(If I don’t think about WHY it keeps for 2 weeks, then it won’t hurt me. You know, like when you pray away calories). ;)
Try
Is it GMO corn? (I don’t buy corn on the cob much and don’t know much about how they’ve fussed around with it..)
Has to be. No ordinary corn will be fit to eat after a week or more.
I don’t really understand all the issues surrounding - or the objections to - GMO; it seems that we’ve been ‘modifying’ plants forever. But recently I read that pesticides are more vigorously used on these modified crops, and that does concern me.
If anyone knows more about this, comments and a conversation might be appreciated here.
My favorite recipe for carrots, courtesy of Ree Drummond - The Pioneer Woman. Whiskey Glazed Carrots. They were a huge hit a few Thanksgivings back and it’s now my ‘job’ to bring this dish wherever we are invited.
https://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/whiskey-glazed-carrots-major-league-yum/
She’s hilarious, too! :)
Glazed w/ whiskey. What could possibly go wrong?
In the movie Mermaids, Cher is the mother to Winona Ryder and only serves her appetizers. That would be heaven!
When my Dad’s sister had us for dinner she would serve about 10 sides. That was heaven too.
I guess I like to taste more than I like to eat!
Personally I would eat anything that Cher was involved in.
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