I think it’s rather apropos that I’m writing this right after Thanksgiving, because besides my passion for handbells, I have a passion (some might call it an obsession) about cooking. I was fortunate enough to grow up with a mom and a grandmother who were good cooks, so I guess you could say it’s in my genes. I have many fond memories of being in the kitchen with one or the other of them, watching or helping out. Every Thanksgiving, my grandmother would typically host 25 or so people, not always counting the kids. We would always have a turkey that was at least 23+ pounds. It wasn’t until I moved to New England and started making Thanksgiving dinners with my friends did I find that it was possible to get a turkey that weighed less than 20 lbs!
This Thanksgiving, as in past ones, I was the one doing the turkey, and most of the fixings. It was just the four of us (my partner, Chris, me, and his two Millennial kids), but I still wasn’t able to stop making enough food for an army. We had the usual things … turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, squash, roasted root vegetables and biscuits. I have a go-to turkey recipe that I follow from “America’s Test Kitchen”, that makes a great turkey every time… just chop a big pile of parsley with sage, rosemary and thyme, mix it with a stick of melted butter, with some chopped garlic and salt and pepper. Rub it all over the turkey, and roast it in a 300-degree oven. Easy peasy.
It’s the GRAVY that always gives me fits! I remember my grandmother making it in the roasting pan that the turkey came out of, and just doing it over the stove. I tried that once, and it came out awful, so I know I was doing something wrong. Or maybe I just wasn’t used to all of that fat. Who knows. I think that after many failures, I’ve figured out that the easiest thing to do was to just go back to making a basic roux in a saucepan, and then slowly adding the stock I’ve made from simmering the neck and giblets with celery, carrots and bay leaves. It’s never quite right (at least to my taste), but it’s pretty close, and everybody likes it.
Every year, I’m always looking for something new to add to the menu, so this year, I decided to try a new vegetable (at least to me). I found a rutabaga that I peeled and cut into chunks, and added it to the Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes and beets that I roasted.
I was actually pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I had coated everything in a mix of maple syrup with cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and pepper, so that sweetness might have had something to do with it (but not TOO sweet)!
And of course, we couldn’t go with just one pie, so I made my mom’s apple pie recipe, along with the tried and true Libby’s pumpkin pie.
When all is said and done, I enjoy sharing my cooking with my family and friends. And besides, I didn’t have to do the dishes!
(True confessions… this was from a couple of years ago when I tried a bunch of new ways to cook the tried and true dishes. Suffice it to say that it was one of my more memorable disaster Thanksgivings!)
I consider myself lucky that COVID-19 hasn’t affected me too much, other than not being able to be with my MVR buddies! I’m grateful that my family is healthy, and that we can put food on the table. I look forward to the day when I can share my cooking with my friends and family from away again!
Best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season!