Recipes - Main & Side Dishes

[CellarDweller]

Meanwhile, Chuck included a cornbread recipe on his blog.

1 box Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix (8.5 oz.)
1/2 cup melted butter
8 oz. sour cream
1 15.25 oz. can of regular kernel corn (drained)
1 15.25 oz. can of creamed corn
2 large eggs

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Put the eggs in a large mixing bowl and whip slightly with a fork.
Add melted butter, sour cream, and both cans of corn. Whisk together until well combined. Make sure to drain the whole kernel corn first.
Add Jiffy Corn Muffin mix. Stir until it's everything is completely mixed together.
Pour into buttered 8x8 inch casserole dish.
Bake for 45 minutes, uncovered.
When done, top will be golden and edges will be slightly cracked. Middle should be firm to the touch. (Not jiggly.)

Notes
This recipe as written bakes in an 8x8 inch pan. It can easily be doubled, and still cooks evenly. We use a double recipe every Thanksgiving. A double recipe should be baked in a 9x13 inch pan and will take 1 to 1 1/2 hours to bake.

[Sason]

Not all cornbread is sweet.

Well, that's good to know. It means I'll try it again if I ever come across a cornbread again! 

[Sason]

Is this a Brokie reference? As it happens, I will be bringing spiced peaches (my mother's recipe) and no cereal, but cornbread dressing. I'm seriously thinking of making Chuck's cornbread casserole for later on, maybe during the weekend. It sounds fantastic!

I believe it's a reference to what Bobby ate from a bowl at the Twist thanksgiving dinner.

[southendmd]

We had Thanksgiving in Ptown this year.  Joey and her kids and grandkids and partners made us 11 for dinner. Two extra leaves in the table.  Joey had to do a spreadsheet to keep track of everyone's dietary needs.  Very complicated.  In fact, one partner couldn't explain her dietary needs, so she just brought her own food.  Omnivores, pescatarians, vegetarians, vegans, the odd gluten-free folk.  Very hard to please everyone. 

Needless to say, I was in charge of meat.  So, I roasted the turkey (from an organic farm in Vermont), made the stuffing and the gravy. 

Ironically, my cranberry chutney is completely vegan. 

I tend to mix it up with the stuffing every year.  This year, I more or less followed Eric Kim's recipe from the NY Times.  Torn up sourdough boules, dried out in the oven.  A stick of butter is then infused with fresh sage leaves which get fried and crisp up and are later used to top the stuffing.  Then add more herbs and spices, including fennel seeds, which give the impression of sausage without the sausage.  Clever!  Add chopped leeks, shallots, celery, parsley, fresh fennel.  Then add milk of all things.  With a little homemade stock.  Season "aggressively" with salt and pepper.  Pour over the bread croutons.  Bake.  (I top the stuffing with turkey wings to pretend they were actually in the bird.) Serve with fried sage leaves.  It was a bit hit.  Very fluffy.  Eric notes that egg proteins tends to toughen the stufffing.  New to me!

Turkey turned out great.  Very crisp skin from a simple dry brine and being naked in the fridge. 

Gravy was my usual neck and giblets simmered with red wine on the back of the stove with aromatics whilst everything else cooks.  Deglaze the roasting pan with calvados.  Then a simple roux with the turkey drippings, add the giblet stock and some more homemade stock.  (Can you tell I've been making turkey stock for the past two weeks?  Backs and necks and wings are almost free!)

The carcass is simmering in two stock pots now, and I'm exhausted.  The kitchen is full of dirty everything, but all our lovelies are helping. 

Now just resting with a glass of wine until dessert....

Cheers, everyone!

[Sason]

It sounds ?ber yummi!

What's for dessert?

[Jeff Wrangler]

The cereal is a reference to Bobby's Thanksgiving meal?

[southendmd]

It sounds ?ber yummi!

What's for dessert?

Joey made a classic apple and cranberry pie.  Her daughter made a chocolate cheesecake, and her granddaughter made a vegan, gluten-free citrus cheesecake that unfortunately completely collapsed into goo. 

Joey's son made decaf coffee that he roasted himself. 

Then we had a fab champagne, Billecart Saumon. 

[Front-Ranger]

What a great evening it must have been, and thank you for the details on the stuffing and gravy, Paul!

[serious crayons]

I believe it's a reference to what Bobby ate from a bowl at the Twist thanksgiving dinner.

Correct!

[Jeff Wrangler]

Does anybody here have sweet potatoes on their Thanksgiving dinner tables?

Our family always does. I wouldn't eat them as a kid, and even now I could do without them, but years on years ago now I started to eat them  because I was tired of being ridiculed by other family members for not eating them. (E.g., "You don't like sweet potatoes? What's the matter with you?")

At least, thank goodness, the cooks in the family (women, except a male cousin seems to have a lot to do with preparing the turkey), usually don't "candy" them. I don't know how that is done, but the end result is a kind of thick, syrupy coating about the texture of molasses. I believe brown sugar is involved.

A double thank goodness that nobody serves them with marshmallow on top. The very thought of that nauseates me.

We don't have mashed potatoes; "filling" (that is, stuffing) and the sweet potatoes are considered enough. Plus, the cousin who makes the filling includes mashed potato in her recipe. (My mother never made filling that way. Hers was just a bread filling.)

I still don't understand macaroni and cheese as a Thanksgiving side dish.