This year's Thanksgiving we stayed put. Siblings and grandparents in one city...my sister/sister-in-law are nurses and both work the day after Thanksgiving. Mom and in-laws all work retail, so they aren't free the Friday after. I was on the fence until our worship & music coordinator at church asked our brass ensemble, for which I play trumpet, if we could play at the Thanksgiving Eve service.
I said to our Man of the House, "Let's just stay home," to which he quickly agreed. I have a tendency to go overboard when I start to do menu planning for any sort of festive occasion, so I mentally committed myself to NOT doing that and keeping the spirit of simplicity and not traveling in mind. I remembered seeing a couple of "Thanksgiving everyday" recipes/menus in my cookbooks, so I forwent (yes, that's a word) my beloved Epicurious Thanksgiving menu planner and went hunting. I found a few options, but settled on the "Family Supper" menu from Rachael Ray's 2-4-6-8 cookbook. It consists of herbed turkey cutlets with a creamy pan sauce, green beans with pearl onions in a balsamic sauce, and garlic chip smashed potatoes. We also added a sweet-potato casserole (that could've just as easily been dessert) because we love sweet potatoes in pretty much any incarnation, and the Man saw the picture over my shoulder when I was perusing a cookbook from the library.
I am not a pumpkin pie eater, but the Man LOVES the stuff, so I put him in charge of the pumpkin pie with just a little help and guidance. We had leftover filling, so I suggested we pour it into the mini-muffin pans and make little custards out of the rest of it. The Man had a moment of inspiration and crumbled up some graham crackers and put it in the bottom of each cup with some cinnamon and sugar. I actually liked these better than I like actual pumpkin pie. Much less overwhelming with the same repeated mush texture. I even enjoyed the Cool Whip, which I usually pass on. Because I don't cook pumpkin pie much, I'd forgotten how long it takes to cook & cool, so the pumpkin pie itself is sitting on the counter ready for consumption. It won't last the weekend.
How's that for desert first?
I made the sweet-potatoes first because I wasn't sure how they'd work into the pre-planned Rachael Ray menu. They were, true to Ms. Valladolid's show title, quite easy. I felt like the 9x13 was too big, so instead of layering long halved bananas and sweet potatoes I cut them all into chunks, but otherwise followed the recipe. I think I would use a smaller baking dish next time and make it look more like the picture on the web link.
After the sweet-potatoes started baking, I followed Rachael's itinerary for the meal. Marinate the cutlets, cook the potatoes, finish the cutlets, finish the potatoes, do the beans. I followed the recipes exactly, except for the turkey pan sauce, I felt like it was not thickening at all, so I added a little flour and let it cook for a LONG time. Oh, and I used red potatoes and left the skins on.
Since I can't find a link that shows the beans or potatoes, I'll give you a quick run down. It's something like this:
2 1/2 lbs. potatoes
1/3 C cream or 1/2 & 1/2
4 cloves garlic
2 handfuls chopped flat leaf parsley
3 tablespoons of butter
Cook the halved potatoes in boiling water. Drain. Put a think layer of EVOO in the pan. Slice garlic and cook til golden. Add cream & parsley. Add potatoes back in. Mash. The red skins, flecks of golden garlic, & bright green parsley were lovely. It tasted even better than it looked.
The beans.
1lb. beans.
1pkg. frozen pearl onions (I used canned. The Man couldn't find anything else when he ran to the store for me.)
3T balsamic
1/2C chicken broth
2T butter
Trim the beans. Cook the beans in boiling water, about 4 minutes. Drain.
Put EVOO in pan. Cook onions til they get a little color. Add balsamic & chicken broth. Reduce by half.
Add beans back. Toss.
Melt butter & serve.
No one complained about any of the food. There's lots of leftovers, but very clean plate.
Cashew could not participate as fully as the rest of us, and has now awakened to eat more with me. I am being summoned and must go.
No comments:
Post a Comment