Best-Ever Thanksgiving Recipes

My friend Martha asked me to send her my "traditional" recipes for Thanksgiving. In the spirit of giving, I thought I'd share them with you all.

Garlicky Cranberry Chutney
Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's East/West Menus for Family & Friends (Harper & Row, 1987)

1-inch fresh ginger, peeled
3 cloves finely chopped garlic
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
4 TBS brown sugar
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 can cranberry sauce with berries or 1 qt homemade sauce (or however much you get from a bag of fresh cranberries)
approx 1/2 tsp salt
a few grinds of ground black pepper

Cut ginger into paper-thin slices, stack them together and cut into really thin slivers. Combine with garlic, vinegar, sugar and cayenne in a small pot. Simmer on medium heat about 15 minutes or until there are about 4 TBS liquid left.

Add cranberry sauce, salt and pepper. Simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes. Let cool, then serve. It will keep for several days--if you don't finish it ALL after the first taste!

Bella’s Garden Rice Stuffing
Cook 2 cups Arborio rice in 4 cups water.

Mix with:
1 lg onion, chopped
approx 1 cup toasted pecans, broken in pieces
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 med. carrot, chopped
1 tsp allspice
at least 1 TBS dried oregano
5 large sage leaves, chopped fine
10 lemon balm leaves, chopped fine
leaves from approx 6 sprigs of thyme, chopped fine
40 grinds black pepper
1 tsp salt

When cool enough to handle, stuff in bird. Put remainder in ovenproof casserole and bake in oven 1 hour at 325° (along with turkey, if your oven's big enough)

Turkey with Roasted Garlic Butter
(Washington Post, 1997)

2 whole bulbs garlic
2 TBS olive oil
8 TBS (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp salt
Uncooked turkey at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350°. Cut about 1/2 inch off the top of the garlic bulbs to expose each clove. Drizzle with oil and loosely wrap the bulbs, cut ends up, in aluminum foil. Bake until soft to the touch, 45-60 mins. Let cool until easy to handle.

Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins. Discard skins. Mix the garlic pulp with butter and salt. Reserve 2 TBS of the mixture. Rub the rest of it under the turkey skin (loosen with your fingers on the back and legs). Note: If turkey is too cold, the butter will congeal instead of spread easily under the skin.

Preheat oven to 325 °. Put turkey on rack in roasting pan. After stuffing it, rub the remaining 2 TBS of butter all over the skin.

Roast for about 45 mins, till golden brown. Tent with foil and continue roasting. After 2 more hours, baste with pan juices every 15 mins till bird is done (approx 3-1/2 hrs for 12-14 lb bird). Use juices to make the best gravy EVER.

Harvest Gold

All of you in the rainy, blighted Northeast, be very, very jealous. I picked the tomatoes pictured above in my own backyard this morning. The yellow monster weighed in at 13-1/4 oz. We had it sliced at dinner. It was delicious.

In the morning I myself am off to the rainy, blighted Northeast, to celebrate my mom's Big Birthday in the poetically named Gray, Maine. Saturday's forecast: 62F & rain. Oh joy.

Quote of the Day

"I spend my days inside stomachs, and believe me, you could get lost in some of them."
--gastroenterologist Nicholas Belitsos

From Whether True or False, A Real Stretch, in which NY Times writer David Kamp deconstructs Diamond Jim Brady's legendary appetite.

Shalom! Christmas Sing-Along

New:


An instant classic from last year:

And yes, Darling Husband, the Boy Wonder and I will be going out for Chinese food and a movie today. Too bad we can't be in NYC for the Chinese buffet and Monty Python double feature at the 92nd St. Y. ("Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian" on Christmas--how perfect!)

Update 11:30 pm:
We were in despair of finding a movie that would suit all three of us, but then discovered that today was the last day for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" at Starz Film Center. Woody Allen! The perfect Jewish Christmas! Which we capped off after the movie by lighting the menorah and tucking into traditional English roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with horseradish mousse (we're very Reform), followed by the best chocolate chip cookies EVER. (Besides the ingredients, the secret's in refrigerating the dough for at least 24 hours.)

Cross-Cultural Cuisine

Seen at a Denver Asian supermarket. Also comes in Mild and Med. Hot.

The "touch of apple and honey" must wow 'em at Rosh Hashanah celebrations all over the Green Mountain State. I sure know what I'll be serving next year!

Russian Around the Kitchen

Whenever I prepare a huge meal--Thanksgiving, Passover--I need music to cook by. Loud. One time I had the Stray Cats' "Rock This Town" blasting so hard that the Boy Wonder could hear it 50 yards down the street.

It was just us three for Thanksgiving, as everyone turned down our invitations and we weren't asked anywhere. (SIGH...) But I went ahead with plans to make dinner with all the fixings: turkey, rice stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, garlicky cranberry chutney (recipe here, but the vinegar is omitted in the cooking directions), green beans, salad and apple walnut brandy cake.

Well-caffeinated (I recently bought a stove-top cappuccino maker on eBay), at 9:45 a.m. I prepared for the kitchen onslaught.

First order: music. Darling Husband had a wicked headache, so rock 'n' roll was out. I'd been in the mood for Russian music since hearing a snatch of Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kizheh" on the radio the other day. So I headed to our music library (thanks to DH, we have a vast collection of CDs and vinyl, though I supplied much of the classical and funk), then cranked up the Russkis:

1. Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 ("Pathétique") and "Romeo & Juliet"
2. Prokofiev, "Ivan the Terrible," "Alexander Nevsky" and "Lieutenant Kizheh"
3. Rimsky-Korsakov, "Scheherazade" and "Russian Easter Overture"
4. Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor
   

I discovered that the Troika in "Lieutenant Kizheh" (used in Woody Allen's "Love and Death") has a perfect beat for chopping vegetables, though doesn't roust BW out of bed (directly above the stereo) the way P-Funk's "Get Up for the Down Stroke" does. The Rachminoff was great for tablesetting, gravy-making and salad-making (DH's job).

For variety, the last CD I put on was Beethoven's 9th Symphony, conducted by Leonard Bernstein with a cast of thousands in Berlin on Christmas 1989. We chanced to sit down just as the "Ode to Freedom" began. (The "Ode to Joy" was retitled for that performance, in honor of the Berlin Wall coming down.) What inspiring music for Thanksgiving!

I said, "Was Beethoven deaf when he wrote this?"

DH answered, "Yeah, that's why it's so loud!"

I lowered the volume and we had a very joyous and thankful meal. Delicious too; which is a good thing, as we'll be eating leftovers for a week.

Next-day Update:
The apple walnut brandy cake (I used cognac) was a huge hit, especially with the Boy Wonder. Darling Husband and I had one piece each last night, and this morning the cake was half gone.

Gail Konop Baker Saves Thanksgiving!

I'm the only person in My Gracious Home who likes pumpkin pie, so it's fallen off the Thanksgiving menu. But what to replace it?

I'd been mulling ideas (I've had lots of thinking time on airplanes lately), but hadn't come up with anything other than apple pie. It's good, but hardly festive.

A few minutes ago I checked out the blog of consulting client Gail Konop Baker, author of CANCER IS A BITCH: Or, I’d Rather be Having a Mid-Life Crisis. And there, posted Nov 5, was the recipe for:

the BEST warm apple walnut brandy cake
IN THE UNIVERSE

Problem solved.

French Toast?

For some fiction I'm writing, I've been researching the food and clothing of ancient Rome. I came across a late 4th century Roman cookbook, De Re Coquinaria of Apicius, translated into English in 1936 as Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome and reprinted by Dover in 1977.

Check out this recipe in Book VII:

Another Sweet Dish
Aliter dulcia

Break fine white bread, crust removed, into rather large pieces which soak in milk and beaten eggs fry in oil, cover with honey and serve.

I also found several recipes calling for sow's womb, udder and paps; brains are a frequent ingredient too. Now I wonder if the Romans coined the slogan, "Everything but the squeal."

Who Let the Jews Out?

View from main entrance of the Denver Jewish Community Center.

Yes, folks, it's that time of the year again! Passover is coming next Saturday evening (along with agent Kristin Nelson's forever-29th birthday). Which means that it's also time to view my perennial favorite book trailer: Who Let the Jews Out?, made for Sam Apple's SCHLEPPING THROUGH THE ALPS.

As a public service for those who can't bear one more bite of Bubbe's (in)famous haroset, I offer my modification of "Uncooked Haroset from the Veneto," from Joyce Goldstein's marvelous CUCINA EBRAICA: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen. Makes a tasty Hillel sandwich (matzoh, haroset & horseradish) during the seder.

BEST HAROSET EVER
1 cup chestnut puree (about 1/2 can)
1/2 lb pitted dates, halved
1/2 lb dried figs, quartered
1/2 cup dried apricots, quartered
1/2 cup walnut pieces
1/2 cup almond pieces
2 TBS poppy seeds
juice & grated zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup white grape juice
1/2 tsp rosewater
1/4 tsp cardamom powder

Put the dates, figs, apricots, poppy seeds, liquids, zest and cardamom into a food processor. Pulse till it makes a nicely textured slurry. Add nuts; pulse till it makes a chunky paste. Add chestnut puree; pulse again till fairly smooth. Best served at room temperature. Keeps in the fridge for weeks.

Yield: More than enough for 10 people, which means you can have some with a dollop of yogurt (I recommend Stonyfield Farms' French Vanilla) the next day, and the next, and the next...

Update 4/18:
I and Darling Husband searched all over Denver together and separately, and could not find canned chestnut puree--indeed anything chestnut. So I made the haroset without it. It's thick and sticky, like the mortar it's supposed to emulate, and tastes just fine. Whew! Another seder catastrophe averted.