We've all experienced dry turkey. The kind that's just bad enough, you wonder why the pilgrims didn't eat prime rib during that first fall. The solution? Brining. And here's why. Continue reading »
We've found the best masher to get the perfect taters in minutes flat—no elbow grease necessary. Continue reading »
The results of the Serious Eats taste test of eight packaged stuffing mixes, along with some suggestions on jazzing up your store-bought stuffing. Continue reading »
More ingredients: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, turkey, apples.
What's Bobby Flay, famed restaurateur, Food Network personality, and cookbook author, doing for the holidays? Find out! Continue reading »
What's Lidia Bastianich, famed restaurateur, public television personality, and cookbook author, doing for the holidays? Find out! Continue reading »
What's Mario Batali, famed chef, public television personality, and cookbook author, doing for the holidays? Find out! Continue reading »
Classics never go out of style; celebrate Thanksgiving with perfected, fool-proof recipes from our Classic Thanksgiving Menu.
Accomodate everyone's diets, allergies, and prohibitions with our Healthy Thanksgiving Menu.
Our Easy Thanksgiving Menu offers recipes that are pared down or semi-homemade so you can reclaim the holiday.
More menus: Thanksgiving with a French Accent, Vegan Thanksgiving, Mark Bittman's Minimalist Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Foods We Love to Hate
The bacon-covered artisanal cheeseball has got to be literally the cheesiest appetizer you could possibly serve to your guests.
Pumpkin Pie: love it or hate it?
More fun! The Jive Turkey Hat, the perfect accessory for your Thanksgiving celebration.
Though the pumpkin crop wasn't so hot this year and some have flipped about a potentially apocalyptic canned pumpkin shortage, Whole Foods says settle down. According to an email from a PR representative we just received, the store has plenty of their Whole Foods Market 365 canned pumpkin in stock, in fact more than normal. The organic pumpkin crop didn't hurt as badly since it didn't face the same issues with fungus and mold. But if you still can't find the orange stuff, here are some pumpkin pie alternatives.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, November 20, 2009 at 12:15 PM
What is rap star (and now cookbook author) Coolio's mantra for perfect turkey? "The mo' injections, the merrier." He recommends botoxing your bird with a syringe filled with tequila, diced garlic, "regular Italian dressing," a dollop-uh (the Coolio pronunciation of dollop) of honey, balsamic vinegar, pepper (measured in dime bags not teaspoons), soy sauce, and few other pantry items.
After plumping up the bird ("It went from a B-cup to a D-cup!") Coolio throws it into the deep-fryer. But he warns, and this video is just full of life wisdom, do not fry the bird indoors. You will burn down your house and have to buy a new one. Watch the video, after the jump.
Continue reading »
Posted by Robyn Lee, November 19, 2009 at 7:15 PM
No more fighting at the Thanksgiving table over who gets to break the wishbone; this year, just buy plastic wishbones from Lucky Break Wishbone. In the grand world of plastic wishbone technology, their wishbone-shaped plastic bits are a probably the best. Or the only ones. They come in packs of 4 (the "Fun" pack) to 400 (the "Galaxy" pack because, indeed, you are supplying every plastic wishbone-desiring person in the galaxy).
Related
Inflatable Gag Gobbler
Inflatable Fruit Cake
Posted by Maggie Hoffman, November 19, 2009 at 1:45 PM
"Malty beer resonates with the caramelized skin of a turkey and brings out the herbal flavors in stuffing."
[Photograph: Maggie Hoffman]
If you want to eat like the Pilgrims this Thanksgiving, you should probably get busy hunting for deer and wild ducks. But if you want to drink Pilgrim-style, you just need to get yourself some beer!
The colonists believed that beer was usually safer to drink than water and worried about drinking their barrels dry. After dithering too long over where to locate their settlement, the passengers of the Mayflower finally chose Plymouth just before a harsh winter began. William Bradford wrote, "We could not now take much time for further search [for an ideal destination,] our victuals being much spent, especially our beer." They urged the next boat of Separatists headed toward Plymouth to bring about 10,000 gallons of ale and some malt for homebrewing.
Historical accuracy aside, beer works with Thanksgiving food. Malty beer resonates with the caramelized skin of a turkey and brings out the herbal flavors in stuffing. Beer's carbonation and bitterness cleanses and refreshes the palate between bites.
But not just any beer will play nice with classic Thanksgiving dishes. Hoppy IPAs (and other beers on the bitter end of the scale) are out of sync with the sweet and earthy flavors of the Thanksgiving feast. But a wide variety of styles pair beautifully with turkey, stuffing, and even sweet potatoes. We tasted 20 bottles of beer (over the course of three nights) with many plates of Thanksgiving food and came up with these eight stellar pairings to be thankful for.
Continue reading »
Posted by Robyn Lee, November 19, 2009 at 12:45 PM
Thanksgiving is all about spending time with friends and family, eating a hearty meal, and making sure all your guests provide food and utensils to your exact specifications, or else Thanksgiving will be ruined.
This Thanksgiving letter from Awkward Family Photos made the rounds back in July (including a post in Talk), but we're bringing it back for the holidays. An excerpt:
Now, while I do have quite a sense of humor and joke around all the time, I COULD NOT BE MORE SERIOUS when I am providing you with your Thanksgiving instructions and orders. I am very particular, so please perform your task EXACTLY as I have requested and read your portion very carefully. If I ask you to bring your offering in a container that has a lid, bring your offering in a container WITH A LID, NOT ALUMINUM FOIL! If I ask you to bring a serving spoon for your dish, BRING A SERVING SPOON, NOT A SOUP SPOON! And please do not forget anything.
The remaining 75 percent of the letter is dedicated to specific directions for the six visiting families. I know what I'm thankful for this year: that I'm not in that family.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, November 19, 2009 at 8:30 AM
"Eating Stovetop is kind of like eating Cheerios. There are really no surprises—you know exactly what it's going to taste like."
So much bread mush. [Photographs: Robyn Lee]
Ah, stuffing. Nobody pays much attention to you all year and then bam—Thanksgiving hits and the starch junkie in all of us comes out. Technically this tasting involved "dressings" and not "stuffings" since we baked them in casserole pans, not inside the turkey's hollowed-out body. And for the record, we'll probably just keep calling it stuffing.
Lots of spoons were used in this process.
We shopped around and rated the following brands: Stovetop, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods 365, Martin's Potato Rolls, Pepperidge Farms (both Herb-Seasoned and Cornbread), and Canterbury Organics. The results, after the jump.
Continue reading »
From Recipes
Posted by MichaelNatkin, November 18, 2009 at 7:00 PM
Note: Michael Natkin of the vegetarian blog Herbivoracious drops by every Wednesday to share a delicious recipe and expand our vegetarian repertoire.
[Photograph: Michael Natkin]
With all of the concerns about food safety, most people (Alton Brown included) don't actually stuff their bird anymore. So since you are going to make the stuffing separately anyhow, make this delicious version with wild mushrooms to satisfy both vegetarians and omnivores.
The mushrooms throw off a lot of water while they are sauteeing. We drain that liquid right onto the bread to amp up the flavor. For the vegetable broth, you want a clear variety, not a thick soup. Seitenbacher makes an excellent broth powder that I always keep on hand. Another option, if you are a true fungi-lover, is to make your own broth by boiling a big handful of dried shiitake mushrooms.
I suggest a mix of half chanterelles, with their magical scent of apricots, and half crimini or white mushrooms. You could certainly use other wild mushrooms instead. Oyster mushrooms or morels would be especially good. Another nice addition would be a cup of toasted pecans.
Continue reading »
From A Hamburger Today
Posted by Robyn Lee, November 18, 2009 at 6:00 PM
Get 18 of these babies and booya, you can make stuffing. [Photograph: Robyn Lee]
Chefs Jill and Chris Barron in Chicago make stuffing out of sautéed vegetables and White Castle hamburgers for their Thanksgiving menu. It may sound trashy, but in this feature by Michael Nagrant at Chicago Sun-Times, they say they wouldn't make it if it weren't tasty. Nagrant told Grub Street Chicago that the stuffing is indeed tasty, calling it "one of the best stuffings I ever made, including those I've made with bacon." Check out the recipe if you want to include it in your Thanksgiving meal.
If only Kerry Saretsky had had the recipe last year when she made Gourmet White Castle Hamburger Stuffing. The results were less than palatable.
From Recipes
Posted by Caroline Russock, November 18, 2009 at 5:00 PM
The following recipe is from the November 18 edition of our weekly recipe newsletter. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here!
Green beans always find their way to the holiday table. Unfortunately, sometimes they can be more of an afterthought than something to get excited over. I'm sure you are familiar with the usual suspects: the green bean casserole made with canned cream of mushroom soup and fried onions, or the defrosted beans that are more gray than green, gussied up with some slivered almonds.
This green bean neglect might have something to do with the fact that November is not exactly the height of bean season, and the specimens in the market might not look or taste quite up to par. Nonetheless, green beans have a place on the Thanksgiving table, so why not give them a chance to taste like something that you want to eat rather than something that you should eat?
This recipe for Skillet Green Beans with Orange from Simple Fresh Southern by Matt and Ted Lee is a great was to deal with not so great green beans. The beans are cooked in cast-iron at high heat, "pan-charred", according to the Lee brothers, which renders them crunchy, toasty, and a little smoky. Orange segments and a little bit of vinegar are added for sweet and sour notes. No more gloopy casseroles or gray beans, okay?
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