Thanksgiving - The Food!

This was absolutely the BEST Thanksgiving dinner I have ever made. Hands down! If I do say so myself. ;) And thanks to some advanced planning, a helpful hubby and some good luck, it was the easiest ever too!

The Menu
Roasted Turkey
Stuffing In The Bird
Stuffing Out Of The Bird
Oyster And Giblet Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Creamy Corn
Maple Cranberry Sweet Potatoes
Fresh Cranberry Sauce
Jellied Cranberry Sauce
Randy's Cranberry Relish
Olives
Rolls
Peach, Pecan, Razzleberry and Cherry Pies
Four Layer Pumpkin Cake

Here's the story.
A couple of weeks ago Heather brought over a magazine which she STOLE from her doctors office. What made her do it, you ask? It was a recipe for Maple Cranberry Sweet Potatoes that she saw and decided she wanted to try. I looked it over and decided it would be a great alternative to our usual candied yams. Which I grew up on and like but they are getting kind of old. One of the things I liked best about the recipe was that it could be assembled the day before and put in the oven on Thanksgiving when the turkey comes out. Here's a link to the magazine website. The recipe also follows the gorgeous photo below! Mostly so I can duplicate this awesome meal next year. LOL But hopefully you'll enjoy it sometime too.

Maple Cranberry Sweet Potatoes

4 pounds of sweet potatoes, peeled
salt
1 cup pure maple syrup
1 1/2 cup fresh cranberries
3 Tablespoons butter

In covered 6 quart sauce pot, heat whole sweet potatoes with one teaspoon salt and enough water to cover to boiling on high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer, covered, about 30 minutes or just until potatoes are fork tender. Drain. Set aside until cool enough to handle.

In 1 quart sauce pan heat maple syrup to boiling on high. Reduce heat to medium ands boil gently 10-15 minutes until reduced to about 1/2 cup. Stir in cranberries, butter and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook just until cranberries pop, about 5 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400*F. Cut cooled potatoes into 1 inch thick slices. Arrange in shallow 3 qt. ceramic or glass baking dish, overlapping if necessary. Spoon maple cranberry syrup evenly over sweet potatoes. Bake uncovered, 20 minutes.

After spooning the maple cranberry syrup over the sweet potatoes, you can cover with plastic wrap and keep one day in refrigerator. Take them out of the fridge for about an hour prior to baking. Then bake 30 minutes at 400*F.

While I was over on that magazine website I had the amazing LUCK to stumble across this great make-ahead gravy recipe! I'm never going back! You can see a video here.

Here's the recipe (Or at least, what I did, based on that video):
In a large stockpot on medium high heat, brown 2 large turkey wings in 1 Tablespoon vegetable or olive oil. When well browned on all sides, add 2 carrots, 2 celery ribs, one onion and 1 clove garlic, all cut into large chunks. Cook and stir till veggies are well browned. Add 1/2 cup dry white wine and scrape bottom of pan to deglaze.
Add 2 cans chicken broth, 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme and 3 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 45 minutes.
Strain broth and discard solids. Let broth sit and allow fat to rise to top. Skim fat from top and reserve.
In a large skillet, heat reserved fat. Add 1/2 cup flour and stir till golden brown. Whisk in the broth, bring to a boil and stir till thickened.
Store in refrigerator.
When ready for gravy, heat the gravy "starter" in a large saucepan. Add pan drippings from roasted turkey and some chicken broth, if necessary, till you get the desired consistency.

I've always made the turkey gravy with pan drippings, a turkey gravy packet and some corn starch. It was okay but THIS gravy is fantastic. It's definitely going to be my new method.
You could do the same thing to make chicken gravy "starter" and even freeze it to have on hand to go with roasted chicken dinners. Really great idea for SUPER rich and flavorful gravy.
BTW I couldn't find any turkey wings at the store. So I used four turkey drumsticks instead. Bonus! I ended up with some nicely cooked turkey leg meat to make our dinner with on Wednesday night. :) Waste not, want not. That's what Roger always says. ;)

I check the Pioneer Woman Cooks website every day. Great site! On Wednesday she had a recipe for last minute fresh cranberry sauce. I've come to have an appreciation for whole berry sauce over the years. Until the past few years I pretty much stuck right to the jellied kind shaped like a can. Now I can't stand the jellied can stuff. I like the whole berry in a can pretty well. But now that I have tried my hand at making it fresh, I might not ever get my sauce from a can again.

So check out the link to PW's recipe. And here's how I made mine.

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

1 bag of cranberries
1 cup apple juice
1 cup REAL maple syrup
3 Tablespoons orange juice

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer 10-15 minutes until thickened. Carefully pour into a glass jar. Refrigerate.
This made 1 quart of cranberry sauce.

That was it for Wednesday. I got the kitchen all cleaned up and ready to go for Thursday.
Thursday morning I decided to make the mashed potatoes ahead of time and keep them warm in the crockpot. So I made my usual heavy on the butter and milk mashed potatoes and scooped them into the crockpot. I also made a small batch of low fat mashed potatoes (for gall bladderless daughter and artificial heart valve aunt) and put them in small serving size custard cups which I pushed right into the top of the high fat ones in the crockpot. Worked great! one of the high pressure parts of the day is trying to get all those potatoes (about 15 pounds in our case) cooked and mashed right at the last minute so they'll be hot and yummy.

I usually just serve buttered corn with Thanksgiving dinner. Why? I don't know. A guilty need to include some kind of vegetable in the fat feast maybe? Or is it because the Indians served corn for the Pilgrims at the original Thanksgiving feast? Is it just one of the many things in life that we do simply because we've always done them? Beats me.
At any rate, I had a second crockpot and a wish for more sophisticated dishes, so I decided to make Racheal Ray's creamy corn recipe which we have had many times, but usually in the summer when fresh corn on the cob is available. I decided to risk it with frozen corn and it was a success!

Creamy Corn

4 ears corn on the cob or 2 boxes frozen corn kernels, 10 oz. each
2 Tablespoons butter
1 rib celery and greens, chopped
1/2 small red bell pepper, chopped
2 scallions, chopped
2 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
salt and pepper
1/2 cup half and half

Scrape corn from cob if using fresh.
Heat medium skillet over medium heat. Add butter and chopped vegetables and lightly saute for 3 minutes. Then add corn and season with thyme, salt and pepper. Cook 5 minutes. Add half and half. Cover and cook over medium low heat 10 minutes. Uncover and stir. Adjust seasonings.

I made this early and put it in the crockpot on low for a couple hours till dinner was ready. It was great!

We made the stuffing just before it was time to put the turkey in the oven. I always make a great big batch of it. My only secret there is that I use milk in place of half the liquid called for in the recipe on the package. Chicken broth for the other half. I usually use Pepperidge Farms stuffing mix but couldn't find it this year. So I used Mrs. Cubbisons and I was a little disappointed. Back to Pepperidge Farms next year for sure!
Roger makes his Oyster and Giblet stuffing from some of this. He just adds chopped oysters and giblets. Simple! We baked that as well as a casserole dish of "out of the turkey stuffing" with the sweet potatoes after the turkey came out of the oven.

Earlier in the morning I made this Four Layer Pumpkin Cake. I was thinking that I found this recipe on my own but my mom tells me I got it from her. Either way, it's yummy and pretty to look at too.

Luscious Four Layer Pumpkin Cake

1 package (2 layer size) yellow cake mix
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, divided
1 package (8 oz.) Philadelphia cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tub (8 oz.) Cool Whip whipped topping, thawed
1/4 cup caramel topping
1/4 cup chopped Planters pecans

Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease and flour 2 (9inch) cake pans. Beat cake mix, 1 cup of the pumpkin, the milk, oil, eggs, and 1 teaspoon of the pumpkin pie spice in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Pour evenly into prepared pans.

Bake 20-22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks. Meanwhile, beat cream cheese in small bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until creamy. Add powdered sugar, remaining pumpkin and remaining 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice; mix well. Stir in whipped topping.

Remove cake layers from pans; cut each layer horizontally in half with a serrated knife. Stack the layers on a serving plate, spreading 1/3 of the cream cheese mixture between each layer. Do not frost the top layer. Drizzle top of cake with caramel sauce and pecans. Store in refrigerator.

That's it for the recipes!
The beautiful thing was that there was nothing to do right before dinner except carve the turkey and heat the gravy with the drippings.
That's all!
Usually it's a crazy dance at the stove trying to make mashed potatoes, gravy, heat the corn and carve the turkey. And I'm ocassionally still in my pajamas because I've been cooking all morning and afternoon. And then feeling like a shlumpadinka when everyone arrives dressed nicely for the holiday.
Not this year.
I was showered, dressed, weraing make up AND earrings!
It was a good day.