Thanksgiving Favorites

My roommates and I are holding a mock thanksgiving this weekend before we all go home to our respective families. I’m making butternut pie and cranberry sauce because they are two of my favorite Thanksgiving dishes.

If you're interested in one more Thanksgiving dish, check out "Grandma's Oatmeal Stuffing" that I posted for Canadian Thanksgiving: http://eatgooddogood.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-grandmas-oatmeal-dressing-for.html

Cranberry sauce

Before Cooking

Chill the Finished Product

Boil the Cranberries

Ingredients

1 bag of cranberries

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

Preparation

-Most bags of cranberries have a recipe for cranberry sauce on them but if yours doesn’t this is the basic recipe

-Add 1c. water and 1c. sugar to pot

-Bring to boil

-Add cranberries

-Bring to boil again

-Continue boiling at lower temperature for 10 min, stirring occasionally, then remove and chill in fridge

*If you like, you can also strain the sauce but I like mine with whole berries

Butternut Pie (its almost indistinguishable from pumpkin pie-just a little bit more caramel I taste and texture)

I’m using a whole butternut and making my puree from scratch, you can also use a pie pumpkin (smaller and sweeter than a carving pumpkin) or canned pumpkin puree (not canned pumpkin pie filling)

Puree

*Skip this if you’re using canned pumpkin

-Cut the butternut or pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy parts

-Place upside down in a pan and bake at 350 until tender (mine took around 1 ½ hours, but you can check by pulling it out, flipping over one of the halves and piercing with a fork, if its tender its done)

-Scoop out the flesh and puree in a blender until smooth, refrigerate until used

Filling

Ingredients

1 small can ( 15 oz) pumpkin puree/1 cup homemade pumpkin or butternut puree

1 tsp cinnamon

¾ tsp ginger

½ tsp mace

OR

2 ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice

¼ tsp each ground cloves, nutmeg, allspice

¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

3 eggs

1 cup milk

Preparation

-Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl, pour into pie shell

-bake at 450 for ten minutes

-bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes or until knife comes out clean when inserted in center

-Serve warm or cool with whipped cream

Pastry

Ingredients

3 cups unbleached flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup unsalted butter (softened)

2/3 cup (or less) ice cold water

Preparation

-cut together all ingredients except water with fork or pastry blender

-quickly stir in ice water and form into two flattened balls, add more water if needed for consistency, do not overwork

-flour board and rolling pin

-roll out into two circles about 1/8 inch, will make 2 pastry crusts (two bottom crusts or one top and one bottom)

Serve with whipped cream!

Shopping list

Cranberry sauce

1 bag of cranberries

white sugar

Pumpkin/Butternut Pie

1 small can (15 oz) pumpkin puree/1 butternut squash/1 pie pumpkin

            -pumpkin pie spice- OR –cinnamon +ginger + mace

ground cloves

nutmeg

allspice

dark brown sugar

eggs

milk

unbleached flour

salt

baking powder

unsalted butter 

whipped cream

Drop of Thanksgiving ingredients and recipes at Chagrin Falls Park Community Center!

Spaghetti Squash

A little while ago I bought a spaghetti squash at a farmers’ market. Spaghetti squash is incredibly easy to cook but it’s not quick (probably 45min- 1 hr in the oven). Long story short I ran out of time and had to go somewhere so I couldn’t eat or prepare it. I put it in a Tupperware in the fridge as soon as it finished cooking and I’ve been eating it as leftovers since.

Ingredients

1 whole spaghetti squash

ground turkey (I don’t remember how much I bought, but its not an exact science)

tomato sauce

carrots

onion

garlic

olive oil

seasonings (I used salt, red pepper flakes, dried oregano, and dried parsley, but this is flexible)

Preparation:

-Method 1: Cut spaghetti squash in ½, scoop out seeds, place both halves upside down in a pan and bake at 350 for 45min-1hr (or until flesh is tender)

-Method 2: pierce outside of whole squash several times with a knife or fork and bake until tender (easily pierced with a fork) then cut in half and scoop out seeds/stringy bits

-Once the squash is cooked and the seeds are out, pull out the flesh with a fork, dragging the tines through it to promote a “stringy” texture as the flesh comes apart.

*at this point I had to leave so I put it all in a container in the fridge, but if you budget your time better than I do, you can proceed to the rest of the recipe immediately

-I sautéed the squash with olive oil, minced garlic, and the seasonings mentioned above

-At the same time, I sautéed a small amount of diced onions and carrots in a pot, once they were tender I added tomato sauce and continued to heat on low

-When I felt like the sauce and squash were cooked long enough I threw the ground turkey in another pan on the stove with some olive oil and cooked it thoroughly (until all the pink is gone), I also put some of the seasonings in with the turkey

-Finally, I mixed them all together and topped with some parmesan (optional)

*My thoughts on spaghetti squash: Don’t go into this thinking you will get a spaghetti substitute. The texture is reminiscent of spaghetti but not the same. This might be partly because I cooked then reheated the squash so it got a bit mushier. That being said, I think it is really good, but think of it more like squash than pasta

Shopping List

1 whole spaghetti squash

ground turkey

tomato sauce

carrots

onion

garlic

olive oil

seasonings (I used salt, red pepper flakes, dried oregano, and dried parsley, but this is flexible)

Spice It Up

Seasonings make a meal and sometimes the pantry runs short on them, so lets make this week about stocking them up on things that make a dish special. These are some of my favorite spices, herbs, and ingredients to add flavor.

 

Dried

Salt

Pepper

Oregano

Cumin

Turmeric

Fresh Herbs

Cilantro

Parsley

Rosemary

Basil

*remember that fresh herbs have high water content so include a greater volume if substituting for dried herbs (and vice versa, if substituting dried herbs for fresh, be careful not to go overboard)  

Other

Olive oil

Lemon juice

Apple cider vinegar

Garlic cloves

Choose some items off of this list and feel free to add in your own favorites. Drop them off at the Chagrin Falls Park Food Pantry, thank you!