30 Super-Simple Thanksgiving Sides – Photo Gallery | SAVEUR.
You need lots of options when it comes to the side dishes for your Thanksgiving meal, so here are another 30 recipes that are very easy and simple to make from Saveur Magazine. They cover all kinds of vegetables and potato dishes so you can liven up your menu with little effort. Check it out!
One of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving meal has always been the stuffing. Even the famous Stove Stop stuffing has its place, but if you have a little bit of time and want something that tastes a whole lot better, then take the effort to make the stuffing yourself. it is not as tough as you think it may be to make one and you can even do it a day ahead of time and just warm it up in the oven to save yourself some time. There are a lot of recipes out there for stuffing and have a few favorites of my own, but I tried a new one this weekend when I made roast turkey for Michelle’s birthday. Like the turkey, this one also came from Saveur Magazine and is for a very simple apple, sage and sausage stuffing.
Apple, Sage and Sausage Stuffing
8 tablespoons butter
3 ribs celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
4 pork sausages, casings removed
3 apples, peeled and chopped
1 loaf white bread, crust cut off, cut into 1/2-inch cubes and toasted (about 8 cups)
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage
2 cups chicken stock
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the celery and the onion, Cook until the vegetables are soft, about 15 minutes. Add the sausage and cook, using a wooden spoon to break the sausage into small pieces, until browned, about 5 minutes. Add the apples and continue cooking until the apples are soft, about 5 to 7 minutes more. Stir in the bread crumbs and the sage; add the chicken stock and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Stuff the stuffing into the turkey cavity, if you wish and roast the turkey according to plans or instructions. Take the remaining stuffing and place it in a baking dish and bake until it is golden on top, about 20 to 25 minutes.
I personally did not put any stuffing in the turkey. I have never been a big fan of stuffing that way and it makes the turkey have to cook even longer and the turkey does not always roast evenly with the stuffing inside it. If you are going to stuff the bird, you want to make sure that any stuffing you use is cooked already. If you want to make this stuffing ahead of time, instead of putting it right into the oven after mixing everything in, place the stuffing in a baking dish, cover it with foil and refrigerate it until the next day. Then, when you take the turkey out to rest, you can place it in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes to cook and heat up. You’ll want to take the aluminum foil off the dish so the bread crumbs crisp up nicely. You may also need to add a little bit of moisture back into the stuffing because the bread will have absorbed a lot of it. I did not add any in and the stuffing tasted just fine, but it depends on how you like it. I loved the mix of the apples and sausage with the bread and the sage added just the right touch to the dish. I think it would be really good if you used a challah bread with this stuffing as well.
That’s all I have for today. Keep checking back for some more recipes that will be great for Thanksgiving. There’s lots more to come. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
It seems like there are dozens of different ways to make your Thanksgiving turkey and hundreds of different recipes out there to suit whatever need, ingredients or things you may want to try when it comes to the turkey. For me, roasting a turkey doesn’t get much better. Since I am not hosting Thanksgiving this year, Michelle decided she would like to have a turkey dinner to help celebrate her birthday this past weekend. Now I didn’t really need a recipe to make the turkey, but I came across this method from Saveur Magazine that professed to make the perfect roast turkey, so I figured I would give it a try to see how it worked out.
Perfect Roast Turkey and Gravy
1 13-14 pound fresh turkey
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups homemade chicken or turkey broth
3/4 cup dry white wine or dry vermouth
2 tablespoons brandy
4 tablespoons fat from the roasting liquid or butter
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups warm turkey or chicken broth
Remove the giblets from the turkey and refrigerate them for a later use. Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Sprinkle the kosher salt and black pepper liberally all over the turkey, spreading a little in the turkey cavity and being sure to season the back, breasts and thighs. Arrange the turkey on a wire rack over a rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate, uncovered (this will help to dry out the skin, giving you a crisper skin during the roasting) for one to two days.
Remove the turkey from the refrigerator about two hours before roasting to take the chill off the bird. This will help it to cook more evenly. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Tuck the turkey wings behind the neck and tie the tips of the drumsticks together with kitchen twine. Arrange the turkey breast side up on a rack set in a sturdy roasting pan. Pour 1 1/2 cups of the turkey or chicken broth into the bottom of the pan and slide the turkey into the oven, immediately lowering the heat to 350 degrees. Let the turkey roast for 2 1/2 to 3 hours total, rotating the pan after about 1 1/4 hours. Meanwhile, combine the remaining broth with the giblets in a saucepan over medium heat. Simmer gently, partially covered, until the giblets are tender, about 45 minutes. Remove the giblets, saving them to add to the gravy later, and keep the broth warm.
Baste the turkey by spooning pan drippings over the breasts every 45 minutes. If you notice the breasts or drumsticks getting too dark, cover them loosely with aluminum foil during the last 30 to 45 minutes of roasting. The turkey should cook at a rate of about 13 minutes per pound. To check the doneness, pierce the meaty part of thigh with a sharp knife and check that the juices run mostly clear with only a trace of pink. Don’t wait for them to become perfectly clear; this may br a sign that the turkey is already overdone. To double-check yourself, insert an instant-read thermometer into the thigh, being careful not to hit the bone; it should read 170 degrees.
When the turkey is done, grab both sides of the roasting rack with oven mitts to lift and tilt the turkey and let the juices pour from the cavity into the pan. Set the turkey aside, tenting it very loosely with foil, to rest for at least 30 minutes while you make the gravy. Pour all the liquid from the roasting pan into a heatproof bowl or 1-quart measuring cup and set it aside. Set the roasting pan over 2 burners at medium-high heat and add the white wine or vermouth and the brandy. Bring to a boil, scraping with a wooden spoon to dissolve any cooked-on bits and return the reserved liquid to the roasting pan. Boil, stirring often, until the liquid is reduced to nearly half, about 8 minutes. Turn off the heat and set aside.
Once the liquid from the roasting pan has settled, spoon off and transfer the surface fat to a medium saucepan to make a roux for your gravy. If you can get 4 tablespoons of fat from the surface, use that; if not, you can make up the difference by using some butter. Heat the fat over medium-low heat and whisk in 1/3 cup of flour until it is smooth. Cook for about 4 minutes, until the roux is a light amber color, and then gradually whisk in the reserved pan drippings. Bring the mixture to a simmer and slowly whisk in 4 cups of the warmed broth. Let the gravy simmer and thicken, whisking occasionally, for about 15 minutes (or longer if you want a thicker gravy). For a hearty giblet gravy, finely chop the neck meat along with the gizzard and the heart and stir it into the finished gravy. Season the gravy with salt and pepper to taste and keep the gravy warm while you carve the turkey.
I don’t know if this is the perfect roast turkey, but I have to say if it isn’t it’s pretty darn close. I had never salted the turkey like this before, but it did seem to help the bird when it came to retaining moisture and juice and it wasn’t too salty, though we did find that you don’t really need to add much salt, if any at all, to the gravy because the pan drippings had plenty. The bird was perfectly browned and moist and the gravy was wonderful. Saveur does provide a method for making your own turkey broth ahead of time using turkey parts that you can buy, but I didn’t do this and just used chicken stock that I had instead and I think it turned out fine. I think you could certainly substitute store-bought chicken or turkey broth to save you some time if you don’t want to make your own turkey broth.
That’s all I have for today. I have lots of other recipes that are perfect for Thanksgiving as I made a lot of side dishes to go along with this turkey, so check back all week for some great ideas on ways to make turnip casserole, Brussels sprouts, maple glazed carrots, sausage, apple and sage stuffing, creamed pearl onions, some great appetizers like broccoli dip in a bowl and meatball sliders and a lemon layer cake I made for dessert. Check back and see what comes up next. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
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