Thanksgiving Recipes Across the United States – NYTimes.com.
The New York Times used their Food section of the newspaper and online today to post a particular recipe related to Thanksgiving for each of the 50 states and Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. This gives you a chance to try a lot of new things for your Thanksgiving this year or try something from your home state that you may never have thought of before. Check it out!
I am a big fan of Swedish meatballs. I have been making them for several years with different variations, most commonly one recipe that my grandmother had passed on to me years ago and one from chef Marcus Samuelsson that he uses at his restaurant, Red Rooster, in Harlem here in New York. I like both recipes but the one from chef Samuelsson seems much more authentic to me so that is the one I have used, still use, and is basically the same as the one in this recipe, but this recipe also has the addition of carrot-apple mashed potatoes to go with the meatballs to make it more of a meal and less of an appetizer. This is the way you will find it on the menu at Red Rooster and the flavor is fantastic. I did tweak the recipe just a bit from the original. I decided to bake my meatballs instead of grilling them, as is called for in the original recipe to get more of a char on the meatballs. It just seemed easier to bake them, though doing them in a skillet would work pretty well too. Other than that, I followed the recipe, right down to the lingonberry preserves. This particular version is from the Serious Eats website.
Helga’s Meatballs and Gravy with Carrot-Apple Mashed Potatoes
For the Meatballs:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 pound ground chuck or sirloin
1/2 pound ground veal
1/2 pound ground pork
2 tablespoons honey
1 large egg
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the Gravy:
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup lingonberry preserves
2 tablespoons pickle juice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the Carrot-Apple Mashed Potatoes:
3 Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 medium shallots, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon horseradish, preferably freshly grated
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
To make the meatballs, heat the olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the red onion and cook until the onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Remove the onions from the heat and allow them to cool.
Combine the bread crumbs and the heavy cream in a large bowl, stirring the mixture with a fork until all of the bread crumbs are moistened. Add the sautéed onions, ground beef, ground veal, ground pork, honey, egg, and salt and pepper to the bread crumbs and mix the ingredients well. Wet your hands to keep the meatballs from sticking and shape the mixture into meatballs the size of golf balls, placing them on a plate lightly moistened with some water. You should end up with about 24 to 30 meatballs.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. On a rimmed baking sheet with a rack inserted, place the meatballs on the rack and bake them in the oven until they are golden brown all over and cooked through, about 12 to 15 minutes.
To make the gravy, bring the chicken broth, heavy cream, lingonberry preserves and pickle juice to a simmer in a large saucepan set over medium-high heat. Add the meatballs to the gravy, reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the gravy thickens slightly and the meatballs are heated through, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste and keep the meatballs and gravy warm.
To make the carrot-apple mashed potatoes, place the potatoes in a large saucepan, cover the potatoes with salted cold water by at least one inch and cook the potatoes until they are tender, about 20 minutes. Put the carrots and apples in a separate saucepan covered with salted cold water by at least one inch and cook until the carrots and apples are tender, about 15 minutes.
While the potatoes, apples and carrots cook, heat the olive oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the onion, garlic, shallots, balsamic vinegar and honey. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring often, until the onions and shallots are tender, about 10 minutes.
Drain the potatoes and the apples and carrots and return all of them to one of the cooking pots. Mash the mixture coarsely with a fork or a potato masher. Stir in the buttermilk, horseradish and onion mixture. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the carrot-apple mashed potatoes onto dinner plates and top them with the meatballs and gravy.
The meatballs have fantastic flavor and the gravy makes them even better. If you can get the lingonberry preserves it makes a big difference in the overall taste, adding that hint of flavor that makes them distinctly Swedish meatballs. I really liked the apple-carrot mashed potatoes as well as it was a great mix of flavors with the apple and carrot along with the onions, horseradish and garlic. I actually made the meatballs a little bit smaller so we had a bunch leftover that I could freeze and use for appetizers for the holidays coming up. It is definitely a recipe worth giving a try.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
While making the turkey is certainly the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving adventure when you are cooking, the side dishes can be more fun and even more memorable. You get the opportunity to really try out some new things if your willing to break from tradition a bit. Sure you can still have mashed potatoes and stuffing, but you have a lot of options with the ways you make both and with your vegetables, the combinations seem almost endless. Since we will be away this Thanksgiving and I won’t be cooking the meal this year, I wanted to try out some dishes and recipes I have seen recently for sides for Thanksgiving. A personal favorite of mine is always Brussels sprouts and I love them roasted, so when I came upon this recipe from Tasting Table for roasted Brussels sprout with squash and apples, I had to give it a try. The original recipe also tops it all with candied walnuts, which I omitted because Michelle and Sean don’t eat walnuts, but you can certainly include them back in to give you some extra crunch to your vegetables.
Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Squash and Apples
1 pound Brussels sprouts (about 30 sprouts), trimmed and halved
2 pounds butternut squash (about one small squash),cut into 1-inch chunks
1 apple, cut into 1-inch chunks
2 shallots, thinly sliced
15 sage leaves
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons maple syrup
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine the Brussels sprouts, the squash, the apple, the sliced shallots and the sage leaves. Add the melted butter and the maple syrup and season the vegetables with salt and pepper. Toss all of the ingredients until all of the vegetables are well coated with the butter-maple syrup mixture.
Spread the vegetables in an even layer on a parchment paper-lined sheet tray. Roast, turning the vegetables occasionally, until the Brussels sprouts are golden brown and tender and the butternut squash is tender, about 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer the roasted vegetables to a serving dish, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve, topping with walnuts if you desire.
It is a nice and simple combination of vegetables that provides you with some great fall flavors. You get the taste of the sprouts and the squash combining nicely with the apple and the hint of maple syrup throughout the dish adds a nice glaze and flavor to the vegetables overall. We all loved the dish when I made this past weekend and I think it would go really well not just with turkey, but with any poultry, pork or beef meal where you wanted some nice roasted fall vegetable flavor on your plate. It’s definitely one I will make again this fall since it all comes together pretty quickly.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
20 Breads and Rolls for Your Thanksgiving Feast | Serious Eats.
You have to bread for your Thanksgiving meal, whether it is rolls, biscuits or a nice crunchy loaf of bread you can use to sop up gravy (and for turkey sandwiches late in the evening or the next day!). No matter what type of bread you might want to choose, Serious Eats gives you 20 great options for different kinds of breads you can make for the day. Check it out!
25 Thanksgiving Turkey Recipes – Photo Gallery | SAVEUR.
It’s the centerpiece for your holiday meal so having some choices to make your Thanksgiving turkey spectacular is always a good idea. Saveur has put together 25 Thanksgiving turkey recipes for you so you can find the best way to cook your bird this year. Check it out!
I had made quite a bit of chicken early in the week and needed to come up with something else to make with it this week so it didn’t go to waste. One of my favorite standby dishes that is a great way to use some leftovers is to make some type of pot pie. you can pretty much put anything in a pot pie and have any type of protein or just vegetables and some type of gravy on the inside and then top it off with some type of crust to make your pie. I had seen this recipe on Bon Appetit’s website recently that makes the whole pie in a cast iron skillet and makes use of a couple of different vegetables in a pot pie that I haven’t tried before – butternut squash and kale. Now we are not big kale eaters in my house – I don’t really care for the bitterness of it and I would much rather have spinach, which I happened to have on hand, so instead of going out to buy kale, I substituted spinach instead.
Skillet Chicken Pot Pie with Butternut Squash
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup frozen white pearl onions, thawed
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
1 small bunch kale, center ribs and stems removed, leaves chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups chicken broth
1/2 small butternut squash, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 rotisserie chicken, meat torn into bite-size pieces, or 1 1/2 cups leftover chicken, torn into pieces
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 egg
Place a rack in the upper third of the oven; preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Heat the olive oil in an 8-inch cast-iron or other heavy ovenproof skillet set over medium-high heat. Add the pearl onions. Cook the onions, stirring occasionally, until the onions begin to brown, about 4 minutes.
Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the garlic and the sage to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until the garlic begins to brown, about 2 minutes. Add the kale and season it with salt and pepper. Cook, tossing the kale often, until the kale is wilted, about 4 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and cook, stirring constantly, for 4 minutes.
Stir in the chicken broth a 1/2-cupful at a time, then add the butternut squash. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the squash is just softened and the broth is thickened, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the chicken pieces to the skillet, stir and season with salt and pepper.
Unfold the puff pastry and smooth any creases. Place the puff pastry over the skillet, allowing the corners to hang over the sides of the skillet. Whisk the egg and 1 teaspoon of water in a small bowl. Brush the pastry with the egg wash and cut four 1-inch slits on the top of the pastry to vent it.
Bake the pot pie until the pastry is beginning to brown, about 15 to 20 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees and continue to bake the pot pie until the pastry is a deep golden brown and crisp, about 15 to 20 minutes longer. Let the pot pie cool for 10 minutes before serving.
This is a great one pot dish that gets done in under an hour and uses your leftovers really well. I enjoyed the addition of the spinach and the squash instead of having just carrots and potatoes in the mix. I also added some peas to the mix that I had and I ended up using regular pie crust instead of puff pastry, mainly because I did not have any puff pastry on hand that night. I think the puff pastry would be perfect since it is lighter and flakier, but the pie crust did the job nicely. This is definitely an easy one that you want to make use of again and would be just as good with beef as it is with chicken.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
When life gets hectic around the homestead I usually turn to making a stir fry for dinner. it is often the easiest thing to putt together in a short amount of time, doesn’t typically use a lot of ingredients and can be made basically with whatever you happen to have on hand, including any leftovers you want to try to use. Such was the case yesterday and when I had lot going on all day, Michelle was working late and I just needed something easy that I could put on the table fast. I decided to make use of this recipe that I had seen at Savory Nothings for a crispy garlic chicken that I decided to turn into a very easy stir fry when I included some leftover green beans, a couple of sliced peppers and some shallot.
Crispy Garlic Chicken Stir Fry
For the Sauce:
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons barbecue sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
For the Chicken and Vegetables:
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
1/2 cup flour
3 eggs
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
Vegetable oil, for frying
1 cup green beans, fresh or frozen (trimmed if fresh)
1-2 small bell peppers, any color, seeded and sliced into rounds
1 shallot, diced
To make the sauce, add the minced garlic, honey, soy sauce, barbecue sauce, fish sauce, white wine vinegar and the water together in a small saucepan set over medium-high heat. Bring the mixture to a boil then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer the sauce until it begins to thicken, about 4 to 5 minutes. Set the sauce aside until the chicken is ready.
To make the chicken, pat the chicken dry with paper towels. In a shallow dish, add the flour. Whisk the eggs together in a second dish and place the breadcrumbs in a third shallow dish. To bread the chicken, first coat the chicken pieces in the flour, then dip the chicken pieces in the egg, shaking off any excess, and then dip the chicken in the breadcrumbs to coat them. Set the chicken pieces aside on a platter until all of the chicken is coated.
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add two tablespoons of the vegetable oil and heat the oil until it is shimmering. Add the chicken, cooking in batches so you do not overcrowd the pan, and cook the chicken for 6 to 8 minutes, until it is cooked through on the inside and golden and crispy on the outside.
Once all the chicken has been cooked, add the green beans, peppers and shallot to the skillet and saute the vegetables until they are heated through, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the chicken back to the skillet with the vegetables and then coat the contents of the skillet with the garlic sauce. Toss all the ingredients with the sauce until everything is well coated and cook until the sauce has thickened to a syrupy consistency, about 2 minutes. Pour the contents of the skillet into a bowl or on a serving platter and serve.
Quick, simple and it all comes together in under 25 minutes. The sauce was perfect, just like your favorite sauce from your local Chinese restaurant, nice and thick and full of garlic and sweetness. You could really add any vegetables you like to this right at the end; I just happen to have green beans and peppers on hand but I think broccoli and baby corn would go really well with this as well. I served it simply with some white rice and we had a very easy meal to enjoy after a busy day.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
The weather is supposed to turn decidedly colder here in New York tomorrow and stay that way for at least the few days after that, meaning it creeps even closer to actually being winter here and makes the idea of soups and stews even more palatable than before. I have already been getting my arsenal of recipes ready to make soups and stews this winter and have a bunch i want to try, but I decided to start out with this particular recipe that I found mainly because I had a lot of Italian sausage in the freezer and a bag of lentils that I was trying to figure out what to do with. I came across this recipe from Todd Wilbur as a Top Secret recipe and a version of Carrabba’s spicy sausage lentil soup. I have never had this particular soup at Cararabba’s and I have only been to a Carrabba’s once in my life so I don’t know much about them, but this soup sounded pretty good and easy to make, so I gave it a shot. This recipe makes a large portion, and I’ll show the original recipe here, but I cut this recipe in half to make it for my family.
Spicy Sausage Lentil Soup
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup minced onion
3/4 cup grated and minced carrot
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 pound uncooked hot Italian sausage
2 ounces diced ham
7 cups water
5 cups chicken broth
1 pound dry lentils
1 tomato, diced
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon minced fresh basil
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
In a Dutch oven or large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat until the oil is shimmering. Add the onion, carrot, and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are fragrant, about 3 minutes. Remove the Italian sausage from its casing and add it to the pan. Saute the sausage for about 8 minutes, stirring it often. Break up the sausage into bite-size bits as it cooks with a wooden spoon or spatula. Add the diced ham, stir to combine with the other ingredients in the pot and cook the mixture for an additional minute.
Add the water, chicken broth, lentils, tomato, white wine vinegar, basil, parsley, bay leaves, salt, pepper, thyme, oregano and red pepper flakes and stir to combine the ingredients. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the soup for about 1 hour, until the lentils are tender. Serve the soup in cups or bowls.
It’s a pretty basic recipe that gives you some great flavors. I love lentil soup on its own but adding the sausage to it added some great flavor and spice. You can use a ham steam for the ham or if you don’t have that I think deli ham would suffice or just leave out the ham altogether if you like. This makes a lot of soup, even after I cut the recipe in half for the three of us there was a lot leftover, which is okay with me because it makes a great lunch alternative for this time of year. It is simple with great chunks of sausage to go along with the lentils, vegetables and herbs and it gets a little kick from the hot sausage and the pepper flakes.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
As good as ribs can be when they are cooked on the grill, or even better in a smoker, you can still get pretty results from making ribs in the oven. Since I don’t have access to a grill or a smoker, the oven has really been my only choice and since we really like ribs around here, I have to find new ways to make them great. I have made them in the past with pretty good results, but they never seemed to be that falling off the bone great that you get at good barbecue places or from smoking them for hours. I cam across this recipe at Food.com that changed all of that for me and it can’t get any easier than this one. it is just two ingredients, a couple of steps and letting the ribs do their thing in the oven and you end up with a fantastic result.
Low and Slow Oven Baked Ribs
2 racks St. Louis style ribs (or baby back ribs, whatever you prefer)
Your favorite barbecue or spice rub, grill seasoning, or salt and pepper
1 cup of your favorite store-bought barbecue sauce or homemade barbecue sauce
Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Place the ribs on a cutting board and season them well with your favorite spice rub, grill seasoning, barbecue rub or salt and pepper, on both sides. Line one large rimmed baking sheet or two smaller baking sheets with aluminum foil. Place the ribs meat side down on the baking sheet or sheets and cover the baking sheets or sheet tightly with aluminum foil, making sure all of the edges are well sealed.
Bake the ribs in the oven. If you are using baby back ribs, bake the ribs for about 3 1/2 hours. For St. Louis style ribs, bake the ribs for about 4 hours. Remove the ribs from the oven and carefully remove the top covering of the aluminum foil. Drain any liquid or drippings from the baking sheet and then flip the ribs over so that they are now meat side up. Be careful flipping the ribs as they will be quite hot and very tender so they may start to fall apart.
Paint the ribs with a layer of barbecue sauce and then return the ribs to the oven, uncovered, for an additional 20 to 30 minutes until the sauce has baked in. You can add additional coatings of sauce if you think the ribs need it. Remove the ribs from the oven and gently transfer them to the cutting board. Cut the ribs into 1 or 2 rib sections and place them on a serving platter. Serve the ribs with extra barbecue sauce on the side.
I have to say these were among the most tender ribs I have ever had and certainly the best ones I have made at home. They were coming easily off the bone and just melted in your mouth when you bit into them. I used the St. Louis ribs for this recipe since they were on sale here last week and were a lot cheaper than the baby backs. They are a little larger and a bit fattier but I think they have great flavor as well. You can serve these with your favorite recipes of potato salad and baked beans and you have a great meal. All you need to do is put them in the oven, go about your business for a few hours and you have great ribs for dinner.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Fun, unusual and forgotten designations on our calendar.
Happily Ever After Lives Here
a little bit naughty a little bit nice
Letting Life Lead
Simple and delicious dinner inspiration
onedadskitchen 