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@Dmcavanagh: I know, right? I was wondering the same thing. Plain old pasta with butter is good enough for me...

soba noodle salad is a great idea! Make a dressing with orange juice, sriracha, ginger, sugar, and vinegar and toss in some crispy veggies. Delish!

Another quick option is to sweat some chopped garlic with a little fennel with some butter, throw in some sliced mushrooms and some thyme (preferably fresh), cook till the mushrooms have released their juices. Then add some cream and chopped proscuitto or ham and some peas (I've also thrown in sun dried tomatoes on occasion instead of the peas). This also works with chopped smoked salmon too, with or without the mushrooms. Have some Locatelli or Parmigiana to grate over it. This recipe makes a good appetizer too.

Penne With Five Cheeses from The Barefoot Contessa has always been a hit. As Ina Garten suggests in the episode from her show, I double the amount of gorgonzola; I also add a little extra cream so it won't be at all dry:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_32177,00.html

Vodka sauce is also a good pasta side - you can add some heat by using pepper vodka. An amatriciana or puttanesca sauce is good too.

@Lorenzo - you are forgetting the onions and celery, without those it won't taste like stuffing, just wet buttered bread. The fat in the butter carries the seasoning and aromatic vegetable flavors. Leave out the fat and vegetables, and stuffing is wet salty bread.

I don't celebrate Thanksgiving (British guy). But I'd love to. Any excuse for roast turkey!

Anyway, I usually use a stuffing that I think would work great for you when I roast chicken; surely you could just use more?

I take 1/2 cup dry couscous and put it into a bowl with 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt and some chopped up dried dates (as many as you like). Pour over a cup of boiling water, and when the couscous has absorbed it all, stir through 1 tbsp honey. Stuff the chicken. You'd have to double it to go inside a turkey. Maybe even triple.

If you are baking it separately, put it in a buttered dish, and dot with butter before it goes into the oven.

Hope that helps. :)

@queenblue how do you saute the onions and celery without fat? If you add them raw, they will not cook, if you boil them.... well, then they are boiled (yuck).

i second- again- the earth balance. if you can find it in stick form, it's easier to measure. shedd's also used to make a margarine (i know) that happened to be vegan called something like willow run that was easier to find and a bit cheaper. seriously, my family never knew that the stuffing i made for years was vegan.

I'd use turkey fat, or if you don't have it, some other poultry fat like goose fat, duck fat, or chicken fat.

If you cook the stuffing inside the turkey, it doesn't need to be very fatty since it will absorb fat and juice from the turkey, particularly the part under the neck flap.

If you are not stuffing the bird, you can cut off the extra skin, chop it up fine, saute to render the fat, and use the fat plus crisp skin in the stuffing.

Great recipes...thanks!
The green tomato soup sounds particularly interesting, I need to sub some ingredients/spices but the basic idea sounds very interesting and I'm feeding a vegetarian lunch tomorrow.
I love fried green tomatoes...and we've been there this week. I'm seriously who can eat a kilo of fried green tomatoes..don't answer that, ok!
Love the idea of combining with okra, but I've never seen a live okra in Italy.
We've been eating a combo green & red tomato salad:
very thinly sliced green tomatoes
chunked red tomatoes
tossed with spicy olive oil, regular olive oil, salt, pepper and dash of vinegar.
I'm not sure what's going on, but I think my tomatoes are multiplying in the night... I use them and the bowl just stays full. It's a miracolo!

Dang it! Too late. . .Now I have to wait a whole year to try these recipes. I made salsa with mine. I still have a lot of tomatillos left, though. . .maybe I'll sub them in the green tomato soup.

I made maple teriyaki beef with summer jean, seen here. It had been a while (years maybe) since I'd had teriyaki, so it was quite satisfying. I'd never heard of summer jean before I ran into it at a farmers' market the other day. It may be my new favorite sauteing green. Delicate and light, not at all bitter. And it seems to be in season.

Dining hall...spent the day at Brown University then had to come home and host an open house. I never meal plan because I am the queen of cravings. As for lunch in Providence (a previous post) we ate at a nasty pizza place right near campus that I am sure is just for laundering money. We were late and worried about finding our way..Brown is not clearly marked-it would be great to spend more time in that city as it looks like there are many great places to eat.

Cataloging is not a bad idea. When I was in high school and college, I would do that with my clothes. I had a calendar with me, so I knew what I wore recently so I didn't repeat the same outfit in a span of a month or more. I would also plan ahead a few days to a week taking weather into account and set aside clothes.

Tonight, we are having steamed cauliflower and broccoli, grilled chicken with herb garlic Old Bay, and roasted brussels sprouts with Japanese curry powder. I thought I loved brussels sprouts before, it's awesome with the curry powder.

We have a peck of apples to burn through after picking some last weekend.