Thanksgiving food thoughts

A few years ago, I published the New York Times old recipe for turkey stuffing, and it must be (even more than Mary Seagull) the most popular post ever, so I'm providing a link below.

We writers are a picky bunch when it comes to word usage, we like le mot juste.  It drives me crazy to see embryo and foetus universally misused.  Didn't anyone ever take biology?  The other word constantly used wrong, even in food magazines is stuffing and dressing.  If it don't go inside the bird it ain't stuffing, it's dressing.  Sometimes one needs bad grammar to emphasize a point.This may become my new battleground.  I mean are you stuffing your freaking stove top?
This year, with a vegetarian at table, we have had to make some accommodation.  No disgusting Tofurky, of course.  Turns my stomach to think of it.  Kierkegaard said, "sin bravely," and I feel the same way about vegetarians.  If you don't eat meat, well, then don't eat "faux" meat.  Have the courage to stand for your convictions.  This year, therefore, I'm not doing the world's best stuffing (and at our house, except for this year, we stuff), but rather a dressing. "The world's best" contains meat.   I'm using the second best recipe.  My mom's.  Except I lost it, or maybe I tossed it.  Last year I searched all over the Internet and couldn't find.  This year, I found it in spades, and all the comments all said, "my mother used to make this."  Amen.

Now I was a godawful squeamish eater as a kid, and I didn't like any kind of potatoes except French fries and chips.  Can you believe that?  But I did like my mom's stuffing (it was inside the turkey cavity).  So I am going to give you
1)  The World's Best.  It originally called for ground veal, but since I am not eating baby animals anymore, I substitute ground turkey or chicken and can't tell the difference.  When I say I'm not eating baby animals anymore, that means lamb and veal.  I don't buy it or order it, but if I'm a guest in someone's home, I eat it without comment.  Like the lamb in Portugal in the little hill town of Monsaraz. The potatoes were cooked in the lamb broth.  I felt so guilty enjoying every bite.

Significant Other likes to say, "In an emergency,  the devil eats flies."  Make of that what you will.

Here's a link to the original blog post: The World Best Turkey Stuffing Recipe

First of all, the holiday menu Chez Grapeshot  I found a bunch of Ina Garten recipes in Good Housekeeping and am using three of them.

Thanksgiving Menu  2011

Ina Garten's Herb Roasted turkey with Pan Gravy

Wild-Rice Stuffed Squash (Martha Stewart)

Earla' Old Time Potato Dressing

String Beans with Shallots (Ina Garten)

Cranberry Fruit Conserve (Ina Garten)

Pumpkin Chiffon Tarts

Wine and/or Cider

Now to the second best.  Earla's Old Time Potato Dressing (may also be eaten as we did in my childhood, as a stuffing). Ready in one hour.  Serves six or more.  From allrecipes.com by Lauren Buckner with a few changes by moi.

Ingredients:
1 large onion, chopped fine
3/4 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 cup (or more) butter
1/4 turkey or chicken broth.  I'm using vegetable broth.
8 slices day old white bread, cubed with crusts removed
3 cups mashed potatoes (you can cheat and use prepared dry potato flakes to make 3 cups)
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 t. poultry seasoning  (I'll used fresh thyme, summer savory, and the herbs that constitute poultry stuffing).
1 t. kosher salt
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 t. ground nutmeg (I always do fresh)

Directions:

1. In a skillet, saute onion and celery in butter until tender.  Remove from the heat; stir in broth.  In a large bowl, combine bread cubes, prepared potatoes, egg and all seasonings.  Sir in onion mixture.  If mixture seems dry, add more melted butter or broth. Transfer to a greased  2-qt. baking dish.  Cover and bake at 325 degrees F. for  40 minutes.  Uncover and bake for another 15-20 minutes until the top is browned and a  meat thermometer reads 160 degrees.  You can also put a little extra butter, salt and pepper on top and place under a broiler until browned and bubbly.

Hint:  put in a shallow dish and you will have room for the stuffing AND the turkey in the same oven.  A little extra onion or some shallots or green onion would not be amiss.

I will post the recipe for pumpkin tarts in a subsequent post.  Another lost recipe, except I lost it last week.  So annoying.  It's not like anyone broke into the house and stole it!

We are off to Roche Bros. to buy groceries.  Larder is bare with no trips to the store since the 6th.  Yikes.  I always buy whatever I can in advance.  Cranberries have been in freezer already for a spell.  I have a big sage plant and some thyme and oregano, even parsley and chives that are still thriving in the garden.  It is such a pleasure to have a late harvest.

Eat well.

Grapeshot

World's Best Stuffing Recipe: Back by Popular Demand

The best stuffing comes out of the bird. You can mix it with the extra you baked in the oven and it will be delicious. In a gazillion years of turkeys I never had any problem with stuffing going bad. Make sure you cool it thoroughly before stuffing the bird. Here's my favorite recipe from a long ago page in the New York Times.  If it's not INSIDE the bird, then it's DRESSING, not STUFFING.  We writers are nit-pickers.  Stove Top Dressing!

10 cups stale homemade bread crumbs. You make the crumbs, not the bread. Make them in the food processor. You can mix white and whole wheat bread if you like. Make sure the whole wheat isn't pumped full of sugar and (yuk) corn syrup.
1/4 lb. finely chopped mushrooms, Champigons are fine.
2 t. powdered sage or chop fine fresh sage. Fresh is always better.
2 t. thyme crushed thyme leaves
1 t. summer savory
1/2 cup minced parsley (use the food processor again)
3/4 cup butter (don't cheat- use butter)
1/2 cup minced shallots
1/2 pound ground chicken
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

In a large bowl, combine the bread crumsb, chopped mushrooms, sage, tyme, savory, parsley, salt and pepper.
Toss until blended.
Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the minced shallots and cook for 5 minutes until soft. Stir in the ground chicken, breaking up any lumps, and saute the mixure until the chicken turns grayish white. Scrape the contents of the skillet onto the bread-crumb mixture and toss well. Adjust the seasonings. Cool and stuff turkey just before putting the bird in the oven Do not overstuff. Stuff both the neck cavity and the body cavity.

The secret to gravy is a good broth, good meat drippings and equal parts flour and fat. Lots of pepper. You'll have a nice broth if you cook the neck and giblets in salted water with a bay leaf and a handful of celery tops. Salt and pepper again. Throw in some parsely. The neck meat can also be added to the stuffing.

My kids ate giblet gravy for years without knowing it, because I only used half the liver and incorporated it into the gravy as a paste. No weird lumps. And thus we share our shabby little secrets.

If you are pressed for time, buy Pepperidge Farm stuffing with herbs and do the following: saute scallions or shallots, along with sliced or chopped mushrooms. Maybe saute a little finely chopped celery.  Add to the stuffing mixture along with a generous handful of chopped fresh herbs. lots of parsley!! Use real butter and the stock you made from the turkey. Make sure the stuffing is moistened enough. Accept compliments gracefully. 




When you are making cranberry sauce, use the recipe on the package (cut down the sugar a big) and use part orange juice for the water, and grate in a little orange rind. Sometime this week, I'll post the prettiest sweet potato recipe in the world.  Once I made it, hostess's always requested me to bring it when I volunteered for a side dish.  I also have a totally delicious  Green Bean Casserole from scratch.  Promise to post it later, too.  And my pecan pie cranberry bars.  

We are going to have a cooking orgy, so stock up on nuts, berries, butter and sweet potatoes.  Buy a fresh turkey, the best you can afford.  

Bon Appetit!  

Grapeshot