Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

haha! i like this article. i do think that if people are coming to eat and happy with your food...who cares how it gets there! shoot, if someone presented me with a catered thanksgiving meal, i wouldn't complain.

however, this holiday is like the pinnacle of my year...this and xmas...it's where i have to lay it all out and impress. there are certain things i do semi-homemade only because i haven't yet tried the homemade approach: stuffing (i would either used pre-made bread crumbs, or a box of cornbread). and the pie crust. can't do that yet.

see...i think sweet potato pie is WAY different. not only in the consistency...(sweet potato is so velvety and thick...pumpkin pie definitely more of a custard consistency). but the taste is very different for me...the spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, etc) seem to work so much better with the sweet potato than the pumpkin.

also, pumpkin pie reminds me of my Midwestern holiday fare growing up, where as sweet potato pie reminds me of southern and soul food cooking, which means comfort to me now days.

lunch for me is the most boring, non-creative meal of the day. a half a whole wheat sandwich piled with lunchmeat. and that's it. i also eat breakfast at work, which is Kashi oatmeal with vanilla soymilk. midmorning i have some yogurt. then in the afternoon after lunch i have a protein bar.

i can see i need to add some veggies and fruit to this! but the simplicity of it is the only way to keep me from ordering delivery with coworkers (unhealthy and tempting options like thai, chinese, mexican, carribean, burgers, etc). i'm inspired by this post and i think i will try to cook up some mixed veggies that i like and season them how i do, and then portion those out throughout the week. and maybe i can add fruit to my breakfast.

www.lanaberry.com

dang, of course i had to come across this at the last moment and now i MUST make a meatloaf! tonight!

OK, Ed, ya got me. You used the swear word Semi-Homemade in a newsletter that got shipped to my inbox and nearly threw me from my chair.

I was relieved to read that your idea of Semi-Homemade is a lot different (better!) than Shamdra Lee's.

Truth be told, the only truly SH dish I make is corn pudding. It requires Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix. I know if I put my mind to it, I could figure out the proportions of corn meal, flour, salt, etc. to yield the identical amount of dry ingredients contained in each box. With so much other T-Giving prep going on, to do this would be cutting off my nose to spite my face. My solution is to continue preparing the corn pudding as I have and simply fess up about the inclusion of corn muffin mix. With a respectable array of scratch foods on my T-Giving table, I think forgiveness for this one short cut dish would be in order.

Happy T-Giving!

We try to do most everything from scratch now, and generally we do so by planning ahead, such as making and freezing pie crusts in advance. Otherwise it would be impossible. We don't do gravy from scratch as we've taken to deep frying a turkey (to anyone who hasn't tried it, it is a surpisingly fast and tasty method, but you do need a backyard for it.) And there are some things that just shouldn't be tinkered with that were meant to be semi-homemade, such as green bean casserole. I saw Alton Brown's episode where he did it homemade and it just didn't look as yummy, and I guess sarahbeam proved it in her own home.

I personally would love to do a feast like seyo someday, but it would have to be for just my husband and me and some food-enthusiast friends. Our families just wouldn't go for such a departure from tradition! What we have been able to do over time is introduce more homemade elements to the occasion as we've become better cooks, but obviously the larger the crowd the more difficult this becomes. At the end of the day a few shortcuts aren't going to hurt anybody as long as everything is tasty and everyone has fun!

Thanks Jerzee, from what I've read, you hold up your end pretty well too. I think one of the missions of the food-makers is to push others, the eaters, into broader horizons. So even if they have somewhat conservative tastes, I like to challenge them and coax them into eating stuff they've never thought of, or thought they would like. Thats half the fun for me, watching them as their minds are being blown.

@seyo you are gifted my friend. My people are not cool enough for a menu as epicurean as yours. If it were my husband and I, the menu would be more enterprising. That moonshine granita has got me thinking.
I bought a huge bottle of ouzo today. Wheels turning.

I went to Williams Sonoma today and found instant everything, stuffing, pie crust, gravy, soup all of it. I have to believe that WS has their hand on the "pulse" and that we old fashioned "cook from scratchers" are a minority group again. Maybe this is why the (formely about) Food TV has gone semi-homemade, yummo, tablescape (gasp).
That is ok, everything old is new again. We shall be a very vocal minority.

I agree with the comments about difference in texture and spicing, and between the two, a great sweet potato pie will win out over a great pumpkin pie. Yumm...