The Grinch Who Stole Thanksgiving

All the Whos down in Whoville loved Thanksgiving a lot...

Thanksgiving doesn't come in a box!

I know that's not the way the story starts, but that line popped into my head the other day while I was perusing the pre-Thanksgiving grocery store ads to see what was going to be on sale and what I would plan on buying. Each ad featured stuffing mix in a box, canned cranberry sauce, and the vile combination of ingredients needed to create that horrible holiday staple known as green bean casserole.

It just made me reflect on how our perception has changed on what constitutes homemade and what we consider good enough to serve on special occasions.

Homemade doesn't mean you prepared it at home. I would hardly consider the frozen ravioli I buy for a quick dinner to be a homemade meal. Home-cooked, okay, I'll grant you that, but there is a difference and if there is a time to make the effort to prepare something extra-special and homemade, it's Thanksgiving. How does a meal from a package show your family that you love and care about them? How does semi-homemade celebrate the harvest and the bounty that our local farmers have bestowed upon us? How does stuffing from a box taste like anything remotely resembling food?

I've heard the arguments from friends who don't like to cook that their families don't care and they *like* the yams from a can and the crunchy onions on top of the green beans. I don't buy it. Their families love them and wouldn't want to complain about their cooking. Plus, they may not know any better, having never been exposed to a real homemade Thanksgiving meal.

So, if I were the Grinch, I'd creep in and steal all the food from a box. But, I'd leave behind some fresh vegetables and a loaf of stale bread with which to make stuffing!

So, let me just throw this out there: this Thanksgiving, replace just one dish with a better, homemade version and see how it goes. Just one. Tomorrow, I'll even give you a timetable for preparing a whole homemade feast. You can take whatever parts of it you like. In the meantime, here's my post from a couple of years ago about how to cook a turkey.

Thanksgiving Salad

Last night I attended an impromptu pizza and beer party. We had a long day at a Lego Robotics competition, and some of the parents invited everyone over to decompress and for the boys to celebrate their hard work.

I threw this salad together quickly. Everyone loved it. Of course. It is based on a recipe that I found about twenty years ago in some cookbook for kids. The book contained recipes for "authentic" Pilgrim dishes. I don't know if they actually were authentic, but this one at least was good. This "Sallet" does make a lovely first course for your Thanksgiving table. I don't remember the name of the book, or any of the actual proportions of the ingredients in the salad. But does it really matter? Salad is one of those great things that is pretty hard to ruin, unless you douse it in so much dressing that you have a plate of soup left after all the greens are eaten. And believe me, I have had plenty of salad with WAY too much dressing on it. The point is, you want to put just enough to coat the lettuce nicely, but not have it puddle in the bottom of the salad bowl.  Try adding dressing a bit at a time and tossing, then adding more if it seems too dry. You'll thank me. You always do.

Pilgrim Sallet
Fill your salad bowl with equal parts spinach or baby salad greens, some sturdy lettuce, like romaine, and cabbage. Yes, cabbage. Just do it. Did I mention that you should TEAR the lettuce first? Do I have to tell you people everything? The one I made last night had about twelve cups of greens, enough for probably eight to ten people, or six who really like salad.

Next, add a half of an English cucumber, sliced. (Don't buy those horrible spongy things that pass as cucumbers in most supermarkets, you know, they call then "cucumbers". No flavor whatsoever. Add some sliced red or green onion, half a red or about three green, and 1/4 cup or so of almonds, pecans, and walnuts. It is better if you toast them first, they have more flavor, but since I was too lazy to toast them yesterday, I will give you a pass, this time. Also add a couple tablespoons of each of chopped sage, parsley, and mint. You have a choice of adding fresh raspberries, pomegranate seeds, currants, or golden raisins. Pick two and add about 1/2 cup total.

For the dressing, I used 1/2 cup of sugar, dissolved in 1/2 cup of cider vinegar, then I added 1/4 cup of walnut oil and about 3/4 of a cup of olive oil. I seasoned the vinegrette with about a teaspoon of kosher salt and a teaspoon of fresh ground pepper. The original recipe calls for plain vinegar and vegetable oil, go ahead and use them if you want, but your salad won't be as good as mine. The cider vinegar is a nice match for the sweetness of the fruit, the walnut oil adds that nice nutty quality, obviously, and I just like olive oil. But hey, you do whatever you want. I'm feeling generous and uncharactistically unbossy. Must be because I love Thanksgiving so much. Or I'm just thankful I don't have to go to another Lego competition for at least a year.

Nonna's stuffing

As mentioned in my last post, which was all of two minutes ago, I have four kids, only two of whom are still at home. (Well, my son still technically lives here, but he is in the military and so he is here only about two weeks at a time. I'll get to see him at Christmas for two and a half weeks and then send him to Iraq. Oh, boy, won't that be fun.) Anyway, my daughter recently bought a house with her fiancee and is now busy becoming domesticated. She calls me all the time for recipes. And in a panic, "I don't have olive oil, what should I do?" Well, go buy some olive oil. She is going to be making a turkey this weekend and although she is planning on following all of my turkey tips, she needs her Nonna's stuffing recipe. Now, Nonna wrote this recipe down for her in a memoir, but can my daughter locate the book her grandmother spent about two years writing? Not at the moment. Besides, it is easier to get it from Mom. I realize this is too late for Thanksgiving, but I thought if I had to write it down anyway, I might as well share it with the world. Or at least my seven followers.

Nonna's stuffing

1/2 bag cornbread stuffing mix
1/2 bag seasoned stuffing mix
1 T brown sugar
20 or so chestnuts, roasted, peeled, and chopped
3 roasted Italian sausages, cut into pieces
1 onion
1 c celery
1 apple, peeled and diced
Sage
Thyme
Parsley
Wine
Chicken stock
1 stick of butter

Melt butter in a large skillet. Add onion, celery, and apple and saute until soft. Add wine and simmer for a minute. Put stuffing mixes in a large bowl. Add chestnuts, sausage, and herbs. Mix in onion mixture and toss to combine. Add enough chicken stock to moisten. Add two beaten eggs and freshly ground pepper. Stuff inside your turkey.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Perhaps the most important food holiday ever created, Thanksgiving inspires more anguish, hand-wringing, and contradictory turkey advice than any other single meal of the year. I, frankly, am sick of reading the "brine your turkey, don't brine your turkey, baste every fifteen minutes, don't open the oven door until it's done" arguments. All these "experts" and their absolute certainty that their way is the only way to cook a turkey advice make me a little crazy! I have spent inordinate amounts of time reading all the different advice for Thanksgiving dinner. I have used several different methods for cooking the bird and have found some better than others. SO, I have developed my OWN annoying litany of turkey do's and don'ts. And why should you follow my advice as opposed to Alton Brown's or Martha Stewart's? Because I am the goddess of real world cooking, that's why. Plus I am always right about everything. The sooner you realize that, as I tell my husband, the happier we'll all be.

Turkey do's:

• Brine. It actually does make the turkey moister. Just make sure you keep it cold while you're brining. You can put the turkey in one of those really big ziploc bags and add a brine of 2 cups of kosher salt and 1 cup of brown sugar with some peppercorns thrown in and dissolved in 1 quart of boiling water. After it cools, add about one more quart of cold water. Then put the whole thing in a cooler and surround with ice. Or if you live in a cold climate like I do, put it in a big pot and leave it in the 35 degree garage.
• Give the bird a good massage. With butter that is. All over. Season with salt and pepper. If you're feeling adventurous, you could rub some of that butter, mixed with herbs of your choice under the skin of the breast.
  
• Stuff. I know, I know, you've read all the Cassandra warnings about not stuffing your turkey. Guess what? We've all been stuffing our turkeys for at least as long as I've been alive and I don't know anyone who's died from eating turkey. Just make sure you cook the damn thing long enough. To 165 degrees in the center of the stuffing. Nobody wants to eat the stuffing that's not cooked inside the turkey anyway.
  
• Baste. Every fifteen minutes. A lot. I start with a stick of butter until the turkey starts to render some of its fat.
  
• Put cheesecloth on the breast. You are pretty much trying to cook two different kinds of meat (white and dark) at the same time. Soak a piece of cheesecloth in butter and lay on the breast. Then baste both under and on top of the cheesecloth. Take the cheesecloth off for the last twenty to thirty minutes.

Turkey don'ts

• Don't use one of those awful turkey bags. You are then not roasting, you are steaming.
• Don't cover with foil. Again, you are then not roasting. You are steaming.
• Don't even think of using Alton Brown's method of not opening the oven door. I did it once. Most dried out turkey I ever made.
• Don't deep fry. While it is delicious, this is Thanksgiving. Save that for your Super Bowl party or something. Have a little self-respect!
  

That is about all there is to it. Pretty simple, really. For straightforward directions on how to roast a turkey, consult the Joy of Cooking. Call or email (jsantini1@msn.com) if you need help. I'm more fun than the butterball hotline. Plus, my first piece of advice will be to tell you to open a bottle of champagne and have a glass. You can't cook a turkey if you're all stressed out, can you?