As some of you may know, before I started this blog, I spent a lot of my time writing about food for Slashfood. Over the two years I was there, I amassed a fairly significant collection of holiday recipes and I thought it would be fun, as we prepare to head into the Thanksgiving frenzy, to point out some of my favorites. Even if most these recipes don’t actually include many (or even any) foods in jars.
- Pan Roasted Brussels Sprouts (particularly good for Thanksgiving, because they don’t require any valuable oven real estate)
- Napa Cabbage Gratin (creamy, tender cabbage under a crisp, brown crust)
- Roasted Pumpkin and Creamed Kale Lasagna (makes a really good main dish if you don’t do turkey)
- My cousin Jeremy’s Gingered Squash Puree (next time I make this, I’m going to try the tip Fran left in the comments of the pumpkin post and try draining the squash overnight before cooking with it. I think it will solve this dish’s only problem which is a tendency to be a little bit watery).
- The Potato and Pumpkin Bake (you must make this)
- Sauteed Brussels Sprouts with Leeks and Cream (designed to be kid friendly, it’s plain delicious)
- Vanilla Orange Sweet Potato Puree (I also use the juice of the orange when making this dish. It’s now become a family tradition)
- Whole Wheat Cranberry Bread (I’ve been making this recipe since I was seven years old, although, in the beginning, it wasn’t whole wheat)
In addition to those Slashfood recipes, there’s also the classic Fork You Thanksgiving series, in which we made:
- A brined turkey in the Orion cooker
- Mashed potatoes and gingery peas and carrots
- Yumpkins (aka pumpkin cheesecake)!
- And a turkey pot shepard’s pie, as a way to use up all those leftovers
Comprehensive! Thank you!
I’m not waiting till Thanksgiving for that Pumpkin kale lasagna. That’ll be dinner tomorrow!
The Napa Cabbage Gratin sound great. Would you say that this recipe would yield 4-6 servings, assuming it’s one of several side dishes?
janet, you should definitely be able to get 4-6 servings from the gratin. When I originally made it, two of us ate it as a side for at least three meals.
I
NEED
YUMPKINS!
Yumpkins has become a favorite fall dessert for me ever since the taping of that Fork You episode!
I must remember to make it to take to Thad’s family this year!!
i totally agree about applesauce being the quintessential fall food. i have one ancient apple tree left from the 1960s and it still produces enough apples (i don’t spray but i do have it pruned periodically) to last us a full year, canning and freezing. Tip: if you have a foley food mill (as shown in marisa’s photos), you don’t need to do anything except wash the apples, cut out the bruises, and cut the apples in small pieces. Leave cores, seeds, and peels. After you have boiled them until they are soft, puree them in the mill and the cores, seeds, and skins stay in the mill. Easy as (apple) pie and over the moon delicious.
This is something to do with leftover Thanksgiving food that I got from my aunt. After Thanksgiving she wants everything to be easy so she throws down a pizza dough, uses leftover gravy as the sauce and tops with the rest of whatever she has left. She says that the best combination has been turkey, greenbean casserole, cranberry sauce and stuffing. She bakes the whole thing like a pizza and says it’s fast since the only thing needed to be cooked is the pizza dough.