My children were not born with
umbilical cords, but rather, bungee cords...
By Cynthia Bowan
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I was checking some things out on my chef2chef page, looking through the various columns to see which recipes I had used, when I realized that it will be 5 years next month that I have had the pleasure of writing a column for this great web site.
The first Thanksgiving column (and up to now, the only Thanksgiving article - 2001) that I wrote for here found our family widely scattered that year. We still be scattered this year, but some things have changed. I wrote:
"We have five children; only our middle one, Holly, is at home. As I write this, Doug is still in Greensboro, NC. Mark David, our #2, and his family live in the Victorian town of Franklin, PA, about 2 hr. away. We are also blessed with grandsons Will (8), Micah (6) and we are expecting Joshua in February! Holly is here, but her heart is across the river with Aaron who has moved to an apartment there from the South Hills, much closer to her, but not that close. <g>. Jon is now a Navy corpsman, and stationed at a Marine Corps air base in AZ. And Bethany, who turned 20 this summer, is in the Marines and stationed in CA."
To update things: Our oldest son Doug moved a few miles away to his own home in High Point. Mark David and Cheryl are divorcing. He lives in Oil City, and the boys live with her in Grove City, about 20 minutes or so away. The boys have grown like the proverbial weeds: Will is now 12, Micah 10 and Joshua is 3 ½ and a delight to us all. Holly and Aaron are not together
anymore, and she has moved back home. Jonathan came back from Iraq and finished his Navy tour. He is living at home, but going to moving out in January to go to the University of Pittsburgh, with two majors, English Lit and Theater. Bethany finished her tour of duty with the Marines, and she is back home.
When talking about our family, I usually tell people that my children were not born with umbilical cords, but rather, bungee cords, because of all the times they have all (except Doug) moved back in…
Cooking has been an experience during these five years. I've gone from seven people down to the two of us, and back and forth…my recipes have been altered many times to accommodate the changes. Hey, at least I am never, ever bored in the kitchen - or elsewhere in the house, for that matter. <grin>
But here I am, once again in North Carolina. Mark cannot get time off, and Holly and Bethany have to work the day before and most certainly, the day after Thanksgiving. They are not looking forward to "Black Friday", which is the busiest shopping day of the year.
So the day before Thanksgiving, my hubby Merrill and Jon will be here, and we will have Thanksgiving here,
while Holly and Bethany celebrate at home before going to see the movie Rent with Bethany's boyfriend, Tony.
In looking through my recipes that I wanted to share this month, I realized that if there is one thing I truly love about Thanksgiving dinner, it is the stuffing. I love stuffing; in fact, I think I have always loved stuffing.
I can remember being very young, and going to my grandparents house the night before. Grandma had a huge cast iron skillet, probably much like my wonderful 14 inch one. She sautéed chopped celery, onions and mushrooms in a lot of butter, while the giblets cooked in a little water in a small saucepan. The liver, heart and gizzard were chopped up and added to the vegetables, along with some generous shakes of Bell's Seasoning. Then the bread cubes were added in. If the dressing seemed to be a bit dry, she added a very small amount of the reserved water from the giblets. This pan was then put on the back porch to cool down. She always made a huge amount of stuffing so that there was extra for leftovers - which, it turned out, were a good thing.
Looking back at things now, I think Grandma might have known what would happen. My sister Susan and I snuck out the front door, and
around the side of the house, and up on the porch, where we each took a handful of stuffing, sort of smoothed the rest of it so it didn't look as though we'd been there, and then walked back to the front of the house eating our stolen treasure…
Years later, I had enough stuffing snitchers in my own house, and like Grandma, made sure to have plenty for the snitches and the bird!
Speaking of the holiday bird, Grandma always had a huge turkey, always over 20 lb. She would stuff it the night before with the cool stuffing, truss the legs, and put thick slices of bacon over the legs, wings and breast. Into her large roaster it would go, a foil tent placed over it, and it would bake at about 225 - 250 all night long.
None of us ever got sick, we never got food poisoning. Of course, the turkeys back then didn't have a lot of stuff pumped into them…
The table was always loaded with wonderful dishes, from creamed pearl onions to mashed potatoes and gravy, salads, vegetable trays, a squash dish, sweet potatoes, perhaps Brussels sprouts, green beans or succotash (because, as Grandpa always said, we had to have one Indian dish on the table to honor them), two kinds of cranberry sauce,
homemade rolls…
After a brief intermission, the pies came out: fresh apple, spicy sweet with cinnamon and nutmeg; pumpkin, topped with real whipped cream. Sometimes there was a different dessert added, like the one year she made a refrigerator cake - layers of cake, and what I now know as chocolate ganache, made with German's Chocolate and more of that whipped cream.
This meal took place around 1 p.m. Later that night, we had turkey sandwiches and various leftovers.
I would love to be with my family again, just for one more holiday. I miss my grandparents and my parents most of all when a holiday comes around. But at least, I have the wonderful memories of those days, and hopefully, can continue for a long time to provide memories for my children and grandchildren. May this be so for you all as well, and as always, CYH - consider yourself hugged! I hope you will Enjoy! the following different recipes for some of the usual Thanksgiving dinner ingredients.
Praline Sweet Potato Gratin
4 pounds sweet potatoes 5 or 6 large
1 stick unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans
1/2 cup packed light
brown sugar
Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 400F.
Pierce each potato several times with a fork. Bake the potatoes until just tender, about 1 hour. When potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel them. Butter a shallow 1 1/2 - or 2-quart baking dish. Cut potatoes in 1" chunks and arrange in dish.
In a medium saucepan melt butter over medium heat. Add pecans and cook, stirring once or twice for 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in brown sugar. Spoon the mixture evenly over sweet potatoes. Bake for about 45 minutes or until potatoes are very tender and topping is crisp and lightly browned. Serves 8.
Acorn Squash with Cranberry Stuffing
2 acorn squash
2 tbsp. butter
1 sm. onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp. allspice
1 apple, peeled and diced
1/4 c. apple juice
1 c. fresh cranberries
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 c. croutons
Cut acorn squash in half and scoop out seeds. Place cut side down in a shallow
baking pan filled with 1/2 inch water and bake at 375 degrees for 45
minutes.
While
squash is cooking, melt butter and sauté onions and celery until tender.
Add salt and pepper to taste, allspice and apple. Add 2 tablespoons of apple
juice and cook over medium heat until apple is tender. Add cranberries and
remaining apple juice. Cook until cranberries begin to pop. Add sugar and stir
until dissolved. Mix in bread croutons. Turn squash over in pan and fill centers with cranberry mixture. Cover and bake 15 minutes longer.
Cranberry Apple Chutney
1 pound fresh cranberries, washed
2 apples, cored and chopped
1 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
½ cup raisins
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Remove any damaged berries. Place in a large saucepan with all remaining ingredients. Stir. Bring to a boil. Simmer until the berries pop, the apples become tender and the sauce begins to thicken, about 25 minutes. Let cool. Transfer to glass jars and refrigerate.
NOTE: Tuck an extra bag of cranberries in the freezer to make this superb sauce when the fruit is out of season. Makes about 3 cups.
Cranberry
Salsa
1 orange
2 c. fresh cranberries
2/3 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 green pepper
1-2 jalapenos
3 T. snipped fresh cilantro
1/4 c. chopped pecans
Quarter and seed the unpeeled orange. Chop
peppers. Toast pecans. Add oranges to food
processor fitted with steel blade. Process
until coarsely chopped, pausing once to
scrape down bowl. Add cranberries, sugar and
salt. Pulse 2-3 times or until berries are
coarsely chopped. Stir in remaining
ingredients, transfer to bowl. Cover and
chill at least 2 hrs. to develop flavors.
Serve with sweet potato chips (can be found
in health food stores and some larger
grocery stores.) Also good as a spread on
turkey sandwiches. Makes 3 c.
Cherry Relish for Turkey
1/2 cup dried tart cherries
1/2 cup cherry preserves
2 Tables. red wine vinegar
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1/4 chopped yellow bell pepper
1/4 chopped green bell pepper
1 Tables. finely chopped fresh thyme (or 1/2 tsp. dried thyme)
Combine dried cherries, preserves, and vinegar in a small microwave-safe bowl; mix
well. Microwave on High (100% power) 1 - 1 ½ minutes, or until hot. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in red onion, yellow and green bell pepper and thyme; mix well. Refrigerate, covered, 3-4 hours or overnight. Reheat before serving, if desired. Serve as a sauce with roast turkey. This makes about 1 1/2 cups. From the Cherry Marketing Institute, Lansing, MI.
Pumpkin Tiramisu
(Double recipe to use in large trifle bowl)
1 pkg. authentic Italian ladyfingers
8 oz Mascarpone
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 to 1 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg (to taste)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (or to taste)
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract or orange extract
2 1/2 cups heavy cream, whipped and chilled
1/8 cup either Frangelico liqueur OR rum or orange juice
crystallized ginger
Arrange ladyfingers on the bottom of a 9x9 pan. Pour liqueur over ladyfingers.
Mix Mascarpone with the pumpkin, spices, sugar and extract. Fold in 1 1/2 cups of the whipped cream. Pour mixture over lady fingers. (If you are using large trifle bowl, you can layer the ladyfingers and cream mixture: just make sure you sprinkle lady
fingers with liquid-orange juice or liqueur--before covering with cream mixture). Gently spread remaining whipped cream on top of mixture. Sprinkle decoratively with additional cinnamon and crystallized ginger. Cover and chill at least two hours, or overnight. Serves eight generously.
By Cynthia Bowan
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Praline Sweet Potato Gratin | Acorn Squash with Cranberry Stuffing | Cranberry Apple Chutney
Cranberry Salsa | Cherry Relish for Turkey | Pumpkin Tiramisu
