Nov 13 2007
Early Feast
Thanksgiving is next week, and Kris and I decided to start a new tradition at our house. Since we spend the actual holiday with our families, we have never cooked our own Thanksgiving feast. (Of course, we have cooked one or two side dishes to bring along to the big family meal, but not a whole meal from our own kitchen). We both like to cook, and while the kitchen (and our willpower) may be a little small for these kind of plans, we made it work. Quite successfully, I might add. We ate our early Thanksgiving (vegetarian) feast tonight - yet, we started cooking it last night. Until now, I never realized how long good quality food actually takes to cook.
Butternut Squash Gratin / Green Beans with Dill and Shallots / Creamed Corn / Stewed Carrots & Potatoes / Stuffing with Celery / “Tofurkey”
+ a beautiful Seghesio 2006 Zinfandel
The food was perfect. Worthy of the *starry* plates. Some of the dishes were quick fixes (the green beans and the stuffing) while others (the Tofurkey) took several hours to prepare. I have been a vegetarian for about fourteen years, and this is the first year I have made a fake turkey. It was pretty darn good too! It had a light stuffing inside, and tasted wonderful with a light veggie gravy. There were some favorites: Kris and I were both oohing over the Butternut Squash Gratin. So, I thought you may want to ooh over it too…
Butternut Squash Parmesan Gratin
1 butternut squash (2.5 lbs)
1/4 c butter of margarine
2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 c bread crumbs
1/3 c grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 t salt
1/8 t pepper
1/4 c chopped parsley (fresh)Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray 13 x9 inch glass baking dish with cooking spray. Peel, halve lengthwise and seed squash; cut into 1/2-inch thick slices. Arrange slices in bottom of the dish, overlapping slightly.
In 2-quart saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and add garlic, cooking for 2 minutes, until garlic is soft and butter is infused with flavor. Do not let the mixture brown.
In a small bowl, mix the bread crumbs, cheese, and 1 T of the butter mix.
Brush squash slices with the butter/garlic mixture, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and the bread crumb mixture. Bake uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes on until squash is tender when pierced by fork. Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees and bake for 5 to 10 minutes longer on until slightly browned. Garnish with parsley.
So, there is the savory… but what about the sweet?
I love cranberries. And I love pears. This has both!
Cranberry Pear Chutney
1 lb fresh or frozen cranberries (4 c)
2 small pears, peeled and chopped (1.5 c)
1 large onion, chopped
1 c granulated sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c raisins
2 t ground cinnamon
1 1/2 t ground ginger
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground allspiceIn large saucepan, mix all ingredients. Heat to boiling over high hear, and stir frequently. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally until thickened. Cool at room temperature for 30 minutes, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Chutney will thicken more as it cools. Store in refrigerator until serving.
What is your favorite traditional holiday food? Do you cook the meal?
I would love to hear more about your traditions surrounding the holidays - please share! and let me know if you try one of these recipes too. I stand by their deliciousness.
All I can say is that I am quite thankful for leftovers!
That looks delicious and I think it’s wonderful that you guys did this together. We go to a friend’s house for dinner and I bring all the pies. Apple, pumpkin, mince, cranberry pecan and maybe a chocolate cream, too!
Oh you and your beautiful photos and fancy camera setup–did you *have* to showcase it on food? Now I’m seriously hungry and am going to eat the last of the grapes in my refrigerator–I had been meaning to save them for the bf ;o)
We head to the mother-in-law’s home in Florida every year, and we always have a ball. There are several vegetarian attendees, and she always makes sure there are plenty of options for them at the table (I am a carnivore). My favorite vegetarian dish she ever made was a roasted root vegetable soup:
Chop your favorite root vegetables (I use parsnips, potatoes, celeriac, jerusalem artichokes and red onion when I make it — the celeriac is crucial, IMHO) and drizzle them with olive oil on a pan. Roast them at 475 for about 30 minutes, until they are nicely caramelized.
Warm up your favorite (homemade or store-bought) vegetable stock, and add a cup of barley. When the barley is done, put a big scoop of the roasted veggies in your bowl, ladle the barley-vegetable broth over it, and go to town. It is even better if you drizzle a tiny bit of sherry in it, and sprinkle it with fresh parsley. Soooo good. I make it all the time. It can take a while if you make your veggie broth from scratch, so I often just use a carton from Whole Foods or Trader Joes.
She also makes those crazy Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies, so I am trying to be really disciplined before we get there!
yum.
we spend thanksgiving at my sister-in-law’s house and it’s always a good time. the menu is always the same though and any variation is not appreciated (trust me, i tried) so now i just bring the green been casserole and a pie.
when i was a kid though, thanksgiving was a big deal at our house. it was usually just the 4 of us, but mom would stuff the turkey with chestnuts and we’d have turkey sandwiches with mayo on sour dough bread for what seemed like days. and then when we moved to france, my mother still kept it up (although both of my parents are french). she’d order a turkey weeks in advance, explaining every year to the butcher why she needed a turkey in november (in france, turkey is eaten by some at christmas), she’d look all over town for cans of green giant corn (back then corn was hard to find although now not so much), and she’d cook us a feast.
*sigh*
OOooo - that looks good! I’m not a fan of turkey - so I usually end up having a vegetarian Thanksgiving my default! I will have to try that recipe for squash.
Thanks!
My Mom is vegetarian but always lovlingly fixes some turkey for us. Please do let me know where you got the tofurkey (and any tricks to fixing it). I’d love Love LOVE to surprise her with some if not for Thanksgiving certainly at Christmas!
thanks in advance…
Oooooooooh, your dinner looks delicious! Congratulations on your successful meal.
Can you believe we will be spending the holiday together? Soon my Lolly dear…soon!
I cooked my first Thanksgiving meal last year (as a newlywed!) and will do an encore this year for a small group, no family. My proudest accomplishment was making delicious rosemary-garlic rolls, which I will reprise this year. And the turkey, which I think isn’t so much hard as it requires planning ahead.
I love that you and Kris are starting your own Thanksgiving tradition that meshes with your family ones as well. So much to be thankful for, dear!
Your dinner photos look very delicious! Thank you for the butternut gratin recipe. I was looking for an easy dish using butternut squash and I think this is perfect! I love Thanksgiving and it’s the pumpkin pie that I look forward to every year. I like to bake, but my BIL bakes the pumpkin pie every year, so I can’t take it away from him
We split the side dishes amongs the family so that not one person is stuck having to do all the cooking and get stressed out. With my mother being Japanese, our family has incorporated some Asian-influenced side dishes to our Thanksgiving day meal, such as julienned carrots sauteed in a miso-ginger sauce - yum!
I am asked to bring this dish to every family Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. I halve it (but make the full amount of streusel), and it still makes a ton:
Streuseled Sweet Potato Casserole
14 cups (1-inch) cubed peeled sweet potato (about 5 pounds)
1/2 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup maple syrup (the real stuff)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Cooking spray
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup chilled butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 375°.
Place potato in a Dutch oven, and cover with water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 12 minutes or until tender. Drain.
Combine the half-and-half and next 4 ingredients (half-and-half through egg) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add potato to egg mixture; beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Spoon potato mixture into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
Combine flour and sugar in a food processor; pulse to combine. Add chilled butter; pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in pecans; sprinkle over potato mixture.
Cover and bake at 375° for 15 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 25 minutes or until the topping is browned and the potatoes are thoroughly heated.
Yield: 18 servings (serving size: about 1/2 cup)
The Craberry and Pear Chutney actually has me salivating. I might have to make that. Tonight.
Ooh, yum. I’m hungry now! Thanks for sharing the recipes — I can’t wait to try the gratin.
I love Tofurkey as well!! Thanksgiving is my favorite meal to cook, I love everything about it, esp. the vegetable side dishes. We always have a three bean gratin that is utterly delicicious.
What a nice little tradition you have begun,….and using your pretty Starry plates. Wasn’t it fun? It all looked delicious and very colorful = healthy. The cranberry/pear chutney looked wonderful. Why don’t you bring that recipe to AL! Soon we will dine together m’dear! XXOO
wow that looks delicious!! well my favorite holiday meal is my mother’s crown roast of pork - she is just so gifted in the kitchen. she also makes a wonderful cornbread stuffing to go with it - i could probably eat a whole tray.
so far i haven’t cooked a thing to add to thanksgiving but defintiely want to see that change - i’m starting with baby steps first and will probably make a dessert this year!
that looks amazing! i love squash anything and that recipe sounds wonderful! we do our thanksgiving with family this weekend down in MD, then we have another that we cook at our house next week with Forest’s side of the family and my parents….it’s fun…we do all the traditional stuff but we always try to do one or two new dishes…
so much yumminess!
Looks like it was a lovely meal. We always joke that our Thanksgiving tradition is being non-traditional (including meals @ Benihana & Planet Hollywood in DC). In the last couple of years I have picked up a couple of recipes that are becoming traditions at our holiday tables - brussel sprouts with hazelnuts; butternut squash with corn & spinach.
I love butternut squash - I’m definitely going to have to try the gratin soon.
Hmm…this post is prompting me to email the Artisan parents to find out what I can do for this year’s meal.
Thank you for sharing the recipes! I am British and so do not celebrate Thanksgiving but we have a family special of creamed parsnips for Christmas. It is absolutely delicious and very much a part of Christmas, so much so in fact that when I spent Christmas with my husband’s family my mother had to tell him how to make it so that it would still be a ‘proper’ christmas! x
Yum! Many of my favorite Thanksgiving memories come from un-Thanksgiving day feasts. We’ve got friends who host a big, traditional meal sometime in April each year and call it Fakesgiving. I like that name.
Thanks for the butternut squash recipe! We are headed to my in-laws, and I am still contemplating what to bring. It sounds (looks) like it will fit the bill.
My family always has the staples: pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, turkey, green bean casserole, and so on. These past few years (since I started dating my now-husband) I have enjoyed expanding my horizons. A new tradition for me is oyster dressing. My MIL fixes it every year, and I’d never even heard of it before then. Now I cannot get enough!She also adds carrots to her mashed potatoes, and serves a lobster bisque. I normally bake a pecan pie to add to the spread.
I am planning on starting my own non-food tradition of running in the local Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgivng morning on years we stay here. Hopefully that will counteract all the eating I’ll do later in the day
We would go on a hike every Thanksgiving morning as a family and with a group of family friends. During the second half of the hike, we would always have a guava fight because there was always an excessive amount of guava fruit. It was great fun all making me more hungry for the big meal.
Last year we did the fullon Thanksgiving at our house - it was the first time and my grandparents came so it was a BIG DEAL. Totally worth it for the leftovers, though!
I just love the idea that you did a whole meal a week early. That’s great! Makes the season seem longer in a way, too…and I really like this holiday.
Thanks for the Butternut Squash Parmesan Gratin recipe….it looks DELICIOUS and I am going to try it next week when it is just the hubby and I for Thanksgiving (first time ever!)
I love tofurkey and I’m not even vegetarian. I just love seitan.
Too bad no one else seems to love it as much as I do. So, every once in a while, I get to have it, but most of the time, I just dream about it
I’m a big fan of corn pudding, but so far, haven’t found a good recipe. I’m still on the look out. For the time being, I’ll make do with some mac and cheese.
I always love corn casserole. I never make it, but somebody always does.
As part of my family tradition, we make enough desserts to give us a sugar high for about a month. So one of the desserts is always something my aunt calls, Eclair Eclair.
It’s a layer of graham ers, a layer of 1/2 vanilla pudding and 1/2 cool whip, another layer of grahams followed by another pudding/cool whip layer, and the final layer is grahams. Top off the whole thing with a bunch of chocolate frosting.
This usually keeps anyone under 18 busy for a while, so that the old folks can enjoy their pumpkin pie in peace. Not that the old folks don’t get in on some graham action too.
yum.
Looks delicious! What a nice tradition to start.
I opened up your blog, saw the picture, thought that I glimpsed a slice of tofurkey and was amazed - we tofurkey for dinner last night, too! We must be on the same wavelength. I think Tofurkey’s ok, but there’s another brand I prefer - I think it’s called Unturkey. The boy, however, can eat the whole thing himself.
The whole meal looks fabulous. I hope that you guys had fun cooking together. Culinary adventures that end with deliciousness are always worthwhile.
Lolly! your making me hungry! That looks delicious!!! I think I’m going to buy a Tofurky this year to take to my mom’s house.
Oh, all of your Thanksgiving feast looks delicious. I’m going to try a couple of your recipes. The butternut gratin looks delicious. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Mmmm. It all looks so good and the Cranberry Chutney (love cranberries and pears too) looks really delicious. It’s the not-canned-goo creamed corn that has me intrigued though.
Yummo! I love the starry plates. What a great tradition. I’ll be over next year:)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOLLY!!! I SEE YOU SOON! I LOVE YOU!
Sounds delicious! Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Birthday!
we had our first t-day with just the two of us last year and it was lovely and low-key. i think we’ll get away with it again this year, too! it’s so nice to have one low-key holiday in which food is the predominate theme! hope yours is turkeylicious! not sure if i could decide between the turkey or the stuffing as my favorite dish. i’m interested in trying a tofurky(?) but try as i might, i can’t get ian to even try tofu. last year he and i worked together in the kitchen to prepare our t-day meal. spending time together cooking/preparing a feast for two is the best feeling ever.
The butternut squash gratin sounds awesome! I’m usually not a fan of squash (at least the way my mom prepares it) She always seems to make it into a sweet dish and I just can’t handle it that way.
This post is making me hungry! Happy early Thanksgiving!
My boyfriend and I live across the country from our families, and for the last couple of years we haven’t been able to get home for Thanksgiving, so we’ve started having our own celebration. I love cooking anyway, but it’s especially fun to make such once-a-year favorites as green bean casserole and cranberry sauce. While making only enough for two (with leftovers) is less work, it feels kind of funny - like cooking in miniature. I’m hoping that in the next couple of years our families will be able to come and spend the holiday with us in the previously unexplored territory known as the East Coast.
The big change this year is that my boyfriend and I have decided to be come vegetarians. I’m not quite ready for tofurkey yet (although yours looked good), so this year I’m going to make the mushroom risotto that I grew up with. It’s warm and rich, and so full of mushrooms that it seems to have formed organically on the forest floor - only with parmesan. So now we’ve started two new traditions.
everything looks delicious!!! it’s very hard to craft a proper veg-friendly thanksgiving, so kudos to you! my favorite thing to make for thanksgiving is my cornbread stuffing…it can be made the traditional way, or veg-friendly.
cornbread stuffing:
6-8 cups of stale cubed cornbread (make this about 2 to 3 days in advance)
3-4 cups chicken (or veg) stock
2-3 stalks celery, chopped fine
1 large onion, chopped fine
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 Tbsp. butter, plus some for top of stuffing
olive oil
sausage (use morning star or other veg-sausage for veg-friendly version)
salt
pepper
1Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves
in a large pan, over medium heat, heat oil and 1-2 Tbsp. butter until hot and add the onion, celery and garlic and a generous pinch of salt. sweat the vegetables until soft and transparent. (about 8 minutes.) add in the sausage (or veg sausage) and brown, breaking up into pieces so that it can be evenly spread through the stuffing. Add this mixture, the thyme, and a little pepper (to taste) to the cubed cornbread and add chicken (or veg) stock until the bread is moistened, but not wet. Place in an oven proof casserole, topping with small dollops of butter (or stuff the turkey if you’d prefer) and cook for about 35 minutes until golden brown on top.
You can also add chopped apples to this, which is delicious, as well as pecans. If you want to add the apples, they should be sweated with the onions and celery, and I’d suggest using something tart like Granny Smith.
Looks yummy! I’ve never thought about trying Tofurkey, but I might have to do it soon at your recommendation.
But I really came to visit to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! I hope you’re managing to enjoy yourself on this drizzly day.
Hi! First of all i’m new at this blog thing, but i already loved yours!
In my country, Portugal, there’s no Thanksgiving but i would love to try the Cranberry Pear Chutney. I was hoping you could go and get to know my blog. Happy early thanksgiving!
Looks yummy!!
Happy birthday to my birthday twin! Hope yours was as fabulous as mine was!
Why oh why do you have to make me feel hungry at 1 a.m.?!
Oh, how I love Tofurkey. I actually crave it the rest of the year, but we never feel like putting the effort into cooking it up anytime except Thanksgiving. (And, of course, you can’t just make tofurkey, you have to cook potatoes and stuffing and green beans, etc.)
Luckily this year we’re going to R’s parents’ house, so they’ll be doing the heavy cooking.
you might want to try roasted acorn squash with cranberry sauce over it. you basically cut an acorn squash, add cranberry sauce to where the seeds were, oil the squash flesh with a little butter or olive oil, and that’s about it. it’s really, really good, especially if you make cranberry sauce from scratch (fairly easy, actually).
your thanksgiving dinner looks great. i’m a vegetarian too and i love the vegetable dishes that come with the feast.
Is there a preferred way to cook tofurkey? My brother brought one several years back, and I thought it was just terrible. I think the timing may have been such that we roasted it at a higher temp than recommended.
Your photography is so impressive. We do turkey and ham for Thanksgiving and tamales for Christmas…a little of both cultures during the holidays.
My hubby and I do something similar for Canadian thasnksgiving fo the same reason. Actually, what we have is “super happy fun day” on the same day as American Thanksgiving. And this year it is the day after my anniversary (today) so it is super super happy fun day! Our own private holiday.
i love the blue plates! it looks so good because they’ll never compete with the (non-existent) blue foods
happy post-thanksgiving.
Catching up on your blog again : /
Thanks for the butternut recipe…I totally saved it. Maybe I’ll make it in a few days!