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How we did Thanksgiving

I really love Thanksgiving. Like, a lot.

When I was younger Thanksgiving was always a holiday spent with family, sort of like Christmas but without the stress and running around, and with more pie. My Mother was the ultimate queen of holiday entertaining and this time of year our house was always filled with friends, family & food. Her Christmas party was usually the biggest deal of the year and she’d have giant bowls of shrimp cocktail, two different types of boozey homemade egg nog, countless nibbles and sweets, and trays of her famous taco dip. Sorry, now I’m drooling. These days I’m trying to follow in her footsteps.

Now that I’m older, and sell kitchenware for a living, I can’t get home for Thanksgiving anymore, so I’ve had to swap the family for friends. As much as I wish I could be home with family, spending Thanksgiving here in Brooklyn means that we can host in our own apartment, choose who our guests are, and make the food exactly the way we like it. No drunk uncles or soggy overcooked vegetables at this dinner, just good friends, great food, & lots of wine. Lots and lots of wine.

We live in a small two bedroom railroad apartment, (long and skinny with the only windows at either end) so we don’t have a dining room. We do have plenty of seating though, so we decided to serve our meal buffet style and pull some chairs up to the sofa and around the coffee table. Most of our friends love cooking almost as much as I do, so we decided to make our Thanksgiving meal a potluck and ask people to bring a dish with them. Since we were hosting we decided that the turkey would be my responsibility. Since I tend to go overboard, I went overboard. The plan was to make the turkey, gravy & dressing, along with a pie or two. What actually went down was a little more involved.

The menu I prepared went like this:
turkey roasted with citrus herb butter
chardonnay turkey gravy
mushroom, leek & sourdough dressing
roasted butternut squash with honey and thyme
spiced orange cranberry sauce
flaky salt and pepper buttermilk biscuits
lattice top deep dish apple pie
sweet potato pie
wine, wine & wine

Since we have amazing friends with amazing taste, the other dishes that joined the party included:
braised red cabbage with apples and red wine
mashed potatoes with goat cheese and garlic
brussels sprouts sauteed with chestnuts, bacon and onions
rice salad with chickpeas and dried currants
pumpkin bundt cake with salted caramel icing
spicy cayenne apple pie
chocolate filled peanut butter cookies
homemade bourbon vanilla ice cream
On yeah, and more wine.

how we did Thanksgiving | Brooklyn Homemaker

Doris, Betty & Russell waiting for guests to arrive

Needless to say I’m still full today. It was an amazing meal and I’m so lucky to have such wonderful friends to spend my holidays with. The turkey was probably the best I’ve ever tasted, and definitely the best I’ve ever made. Our dogs could not have been happier either. They were in heaven! Plenty of treats falling on the ground and plenty of laps to curl up on. A few of our guests were English and Irish, and this was the first Thanksgiving one of them had ever celebrated. We spent much of the evening talking about the differences in holiday traditions and foods across the world and making plenty of dirty jokes about fish pie. We played games and watched the muppets with Lady Gaga for the rest of the night.

As much as I love tooting my own horn and being showered with compliments, I’m not just sharing all this with you to make you jealous. I also want you to know that even if you live in a small apartment and don’t have much family near you, you can still have an amazing Thanksgiving meal to remember. Of course how you organize your service and what your meal consists of is entirely up to you, but just in case you’d like to do something similar to what I did, I’m going to give you an idea of how I made it all happen.

dessert buffet | how we did Thanksgiving | Brooklyn Homemaker

dessert buffet selfie

I happened to have the Tuesday before Thanksgiving off so I did all my grocery shopping Monday night after work and tried to do as much as possible on Tuesday so I’d have less to worry about on the big day.

3 days ahead (Monday)- I finalized the menu, went grocery shopping, & confirmed the guest list.

2 days ahead (Tuesday)- To get a head start on things that would need to be done the day of, I made a citrus and herb butter for the turkey, cubed and dried the bread for the dressing, peeled and cubed the butternut squash and put it covered into the refrigerator. I also went ahead and made my cranberry sauce, and both of my pies because I wouldn’t have time the next day. I also met Russell in Manhattan to stock up on the ever important wine.

1 day ahead (Wednesday)- I work in a kitchenware store so, as you can imagine, the day before Thanksgiving is a busy day. I worked a 12 hour day and was exhausted when I got home, so I tried to plan my schedule so I would have very little to do that night. I did pick up some flowers on my way home, and went ahead and washed, dried & seasoned the turkey with salt and pepper before putting her in the fridge to rest until the next morning.

Thanksgiving day I slathered the turkey up with the citrus and herb butter and got her started in the oven. Then I started my mushroom, leek & sourdough dressing, covered it and put it into the fridge to wait until the turkey came out. Then Russell and I spent the rest of the morning calling family, cleaning the house and getting ready for our guests. I set up a buffet on our credenza-height bookshelf, and set up a dessert buffet on top of our bar cabinet. We decided to use some compostable bamboo disposable plates to save on dishes while still keeping it classy-ish. We got our wine chilling, seating in place, corkscrews and glassware out and ready, ice trays filled, and double checked to be sure we had everything we needed.

Once our guests started arriving and the turkey came out of the oven, everything else went in while the turkey took a much needed rest. Gravy was made, biscuits rose, squash roasted, dressing browned, potatoes reheated and brussels sprouts sauteed in cast iron.

The rest of the night was spent enjoying ourselves and our food. I’ve said this already, but it was the best. Heaven.

Just for fun, here’s how I did the turkey. I usually brine but this year I decided to skip it. I’ve always felt like it’s a lot of work for a small payoff, so I thought I’d try another trick to ensure a moist bird. That’s right. I said moist.

Moist.

Stealing some moist bird

Roasted Turkey with Citrus Herb Butter

Servings: Feeds many many people, depending on the size of your bird
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Citrus Herb Butter:
1 1/2 sticks of salted butter, softened
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh thyme
2 tablespoons brown sugar
zest of one large orange
zest of two lemons

Roasted Turkey:
1 15-20 lb fresh turkey *see note
citrus, herbs, onions and apples for filling
carrots, onions, celery and apples for roasting to flavor gravy

chicken or turkey stock

To make the flavored butter, mash all ingredients into the softened butter with a fork and mix until well combined. Place in an air tight container and refrigerate. Remove from fridge and soften for an hour or two before you’re ready to use it. If you forget to do this you can soften it in your hands.

If possible, wash the turkey and remove the gizzards and neck the night before Thanksgiving. Pat dry, inside and out, with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. If you can’t do this the night before, do at least one hour before the turkey goes into the oven. Cover with foil or a lid and move to the refrigerator. Hold onto the gizzards and neck for gravy.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Roughly chop a few pieces of celery, carrots, onions & apples and place in the bottom of a large roasting pan. You don’t need to peel the skin off the onion and you can use the leafy tops of the celery. Add a few sprigs of herbs and your reserved neck and gizzards, and add enough chicken or turkey stock to come about an inch up the side of the pan. Add a large V roasting rack to the pan.

Rub the softened citrus herb butter completely over your turkey on all sides and some on the inside cavity. Reserve a few tablespoons to reapply later. Place your butter covered turkey, breast side down, on your roasting rack. Fill the cavity of the turkey with roughly chopped citrus, apples, onions and herbs, or whatever flavors you’d like. Leave some room for air to circulate in the cavity or the turkey will take longer to cook and could dry out.

Transfer Turkey to the oven, uncovered, and roast for 3 1/2 hours basting every 30 minutes. Remove from oven and flip the turkey breast side up. They make special turkey lifters to make this easier, or you can use large rigid spatulas, or oven mitts covered in plastic bags. You might want an extra set of hands to keep the roasting pan steady or help out. Rub the remaining citrus herb butter on the breast side of the turkey and return to oven for 1 1/2 to 2 more hours, or until a meat thermometer placed in the thigh meat reads 165 degrees. Continue basting every 30 minutes until done. Your total roasting time will depend on the size of the bird. Closer to 15 pounds should take about 5 hours, 20 pounds more like 5 1/2 hours.

When the turkey is done, remove from oven and transfer from roasting rack to a large carving board. Tent with aluminum foil and let rest for at least 30 minutes, up to 45 or 50. Strain the juices from the pan and use for gravy, adding more stock if necessary. You can use this resting time to reheat or finish any remaining sides in the oven. Carve and serve your bird and brace yourself for a barrage of compliments. **See note.

*Note: I like to say you want your about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of turkey per person- this will ensure everyone is completely satisfied and you have some leftovers for sandwiches and something leftover to make soup or turkey pot pie.

**Note: This was the first time I’ve ever roasted a turkey breast side down- and I will never go back. It made for the moistest breast meat I’ve ever tasted, and the number of compliments made me a little uncomfortable. If you don’t handle compliments well, don’t use this recipe.

Mushroom, Leek & Sourdough Dressing

Okay. So. Here’s the thing.

When I was a kid, my grandmother always called stuffing, “dressing”. I would try my hardest not to give her side eye and move on with my day. I always thought, “it’s not Thousand Islands, it’s stuffing”. It seems that this is what happens below the Mason-Dixon line. Southerners tend to refer to the dish as dressing no matter what, and us Yanks always call it stuffing. I learned later that, at least in this situation, she was right. The real answer is that if you bake it stuffed inside of a bird (or anything else with a cavity to stuff), then yes, it is stuffing. That’s because you stuff with something it, but if you serve it on the side, baked separately, it is called dressing. That’s because, while they weren’t cooked together, you use one to “dress” the other.

So, as much as it pains me to admit it, Grandma was right, and now I’m sharing a recipe for “dressing”. Look at me, sharing a Thanksgiving recipe over a full week before the big day! Aren’t I organized and proactive? Yep. Sure am. It’s almost like I’m a real blogger or something!

As someone who truly LOVES food, both preparing and eating, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. The pies, the huge spread filled with a variety of veggies, the giant golden bird, and a feast that seems to go on all day, eating “dinner” in the early afternoon and going back for seconds and maybe even thirds between naps. Christmas is great, but in my family it can be a bit hectic and stressful, but on Thanskgiving you get all the food and all the family without the pressure. Even when I was a vegetarian, Thanksgiving was my favorite because I love all the sides almost even more than the Turkey itself.

This year we’re not able to head home to be with family for Thanksgiving, so we’re hosting our own here in Brooklyn with a couple of friends. One of our guests is a vegetarian, so as much as I’d love to fill the dressing with sausage and chicken stock, I’ve thought of something just as good! This dressing is STUFFED (get it?) with the meaty texture and earthy flavor of mushrooms and the savory goodness of celery, onions, leeks & herbs.

Rather than buy a stale old bag of pre-cubed bread, I started with a fresh country sourdough loaf which I cut into 1/2 cubes. I like to trim the crusts off, especially the bottom crust, because they can be tough and chewy in the finished dressing. Once the loaf is completely cubed I dried them in the oven on 275 for 30 minutes or so, turning occasionally to prevent browning. Starting with fresh bread gives you a dressing with a firm custardy texture rather than the bread crumb mush that you sometimes end up with when you used boxed or bagged mixes.

All the herbs and savory vegetables combine with the mushrooms in such a rich earthy way and make for such a flavorful dressing. Everyone, vegetarian on not, will love it. If you arent’ worried about making your Thanksgiving feast vegetarian friendly, you can definitely swap the vegetable stock for chicken or turkey.

Oh my god you guys, it’s just over a week away! I’m so excited!
It’s going to be a busy week!

Mushroom, Leek & Sourdough Dressing

Servings: 8-12ish
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5 tablespoons butter, divided
3 large leeks
1 small onion, diced
5 stalks celery, cut into large dice
coarse kosher salt & pepper
3/4 lb white button mushrooms, cut into large dice
1/2 lb portabello mushrooms, cut into large dice
2 tablespoons sage, finely chopped
2 teaspoons thyme, finely chopped
8 cups sourdough, cut into 1 cubes and dried
3 to 4 cups vegetable (or chicken or turkey) stock
2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

To prepare your leeks, slice the white and tender green parts in thin disks, and slice each disk in half. Discard the deep green leaves. Place all the sliced leeks into a bowl and top with cold water. Leeks are very sandy so this is important. scoop the leeks out being careful not to disturb the sand at the bottom of the bowl. Repeat, and set aside.

In a large skillet, melt 3 tablespoons of butter and saute onions and celery over medium high heat. Season generously with salt and pepper. When the onions are getting soft and translucent, after about 5 minutes, add all of your mushrooms, leeks and herbs. Turn the heat up to high and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid from the mushrooms evaporates and the leeks are soft and tender. Mushrooms have a lot of moisture so this could take up to 20 minutes or so. Remove mixture from heat and transfer to a large bowl to cool completely.

Add bread crumbs into cooled mushroom mixture and stir until well combined. Stir in stock and adjust seasoning if needed. Stir in eggs and transfer mixture to a 2 quart oven safe dish. Dot the top with remaining butter and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 25 minutes, remove foil and bake 25 minutes more.

My Favorite Way to Roast Chicken

When I was in college I had to take a few introductory culinary classes as part of my curriculum, but at the time I was a vegetarian. I didn’t pay attention during the meat classes because I thought I’d never need to know how to cook the stuff, and I’ve always regretted that. During my veg phase I also interned abroad, working as a back waiter in Burgundy for a few months. I did eat fish while I was there because I was afraid I’d waste away to nothing in France, where bacon is considered a vegetable. In Paris I ate like a king, but 10 years ago in rural burgundy, some people had never even heard of someone not eating meat for non-religious reasons. I ate a ton of amazing food, especially river trout that were kept and caught daily from a creek behind the restaurant where I interned, but I can’t even begin to explain how much I regret politely declining the foods I turned down and missed out on. Boudin Noir sauteed in normandy butter with apples, rabbits raised in a garage by a little old lady that lived behind our dorm, fresh fois gras from a humane farm we visited one weekend. I’ll forever be kicking myself for that. Shortly after I returned I broke and went back to eating meat. I’m a real chump.

I always assumed that roasting a chicken was a delicate art that I could have learned if only I’d paid attention, but would never be able to master on my own. It’s no Boudin Noir with apples and butter, but a well roasted chicken is a beautiful thing. So, a few years ago I decided it was time to put on my big boy pants and roast my first chicken. All that time I wasted afraid that I couldn’t do it. When I finally drummed up the courage to do it and looked up a recipe, I thought it was wrong. It couldn’t be that simple. Could it?

It could.

Roasting a chicken is pretty damned simple if you have a few hours before you need to eat. There are a million ways to do it. Some of them are harder than others, but most of them are pretty darn good. I think simplicity is best when it comes to simple foods, so I’ve perfected my favorite way of roasting a chicken to be as simple, and as versatile, as possible.

I used to roast in pyrex, at first laying flat on the bottom, then up on a roasting rack, but things changed when I read about roasting in cast iron and I’ve never gone back. Cast iron heats up more slowly but more evenly than roasting pans or pyrex, and they maintain an even heat for a nice long time. Since it doesn’t overheat as quickly, your chicken’s juices don’t burn off and you can make your gravy or sauce right in the same pan. I like to roast on a bed of vegetables or potatoes to keep the bird from sticking, and then the juices run over and help cook your vegetables.

This is a really loose recipe, easily tweaked and changed to suit your taste. I like to wash, dry and season my chicken well before roasting and let it sit uncovered in the fridge for a few hours. If you don’t have time for this you can skip it, I just think it makes for a crispier skin. I usually toss some onions and cubed potatoes in the pan under the chicken, but the other day I swapped the potatoes for brussels sprouts and cubed butternut squash and it was truly amazing. You just want to make sure you choose veggies that benefit from low slow roasting, parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, you name it. When the chicken is done I take it out and let it rest, tented with aluminum foil, then transfer the veggies to a serving bowl, leaving the juices in the pan for gravy.

Thickening with a roux is the easiest and quickest way, but if you want to let your chicken rest a little longer you can make a reduction by cooking down your juices and maybe a little white wine, or maybe add some cream or butter for texture.

Give it a shot. It’s not as scary as you might think.

Simple Ol' Roast Chicken

Servings: 2 to 4
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3 or 4 lb roasting chicken
coarse kosher salt and ground pepper
cubed or bite size veggies such as onions, brussels sprouts, potatoes, winter squash, root vegetables, etc.
herbs, garlic, or quartered lemons or onions for stuffing
olive oil or butter

If making a gravy with roux:
4 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons flour

Rinse your chicken in cold water and pat it dry with paper towels. Be sure to dry the inside as well as the out. Remove any “extras” that might be inside and discard or freeze for making stock. Wash your hands really well both before and after this. Place your dried chicken on a plate and season all sides with salt and pepper. If you have time, place your chicken uncovered in the refrigerator for two or three hours. If you don’t, set it aside and prepare your pan.

Preheat your oven to 450°F.
Arrange your vegetables in an even layer the bottom of the pan and drizzle with a little olive oil or melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Go easy on the salt if you’re making a reduced sauce so it’s not too salty when it cooks down.
If you like a darker color to your skin you can rub the chicken with olive oil or butter before roasting but I usually skip it.
You can stuff the inside of the chicken with whatever you want. Overstuffing can slow the roasting down so leave some space for air in the cavity.
Place your chicken breast-side-up over your vegetables and roast the chicken for 15 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 375°F.
Continue to roast for one hour. A three or three and a half pound chicken should be done by now. For a four pounder you can go another 15 minutes. If you’re new to this or worried about doneness, check by inserting an instant-read thermometer into the meatiest part of its thigh. You want it to be at least 165°F, but if you’re under you can put it back in for another 5 to 10 minutes and check it again.
Transfer your chicken to a plate and let it rest, tented with aluminum foil, for 15 minutes. Transfer your vegetables to a bowl or dish and make your gravy or sauce. If making gravy, make a roux by melting butter in a separate pan and whisking in flour. Cook over medium heat for 3 or 4 minutes. The amount of juice from you chicken can vary, so gradually whisk a little roux at a time into the liquid, simmer for a bit before adding more, until you reach the desired thickness.

Enjoy kiddos!

The Chunkiest Vegetable Soup

Today Brooklyn saw the first snow of the season and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with a steaming bowl of soup. Big chunks of tender vegetables, leafy greens and tomato broth are a real treat on a cold day with a nice slice of thick crusty bread. This soup is so filling and comforting that even the staunchest carnivores won’t miss the meat. I think the cauliflower, cut nice and thick, adds a real meatiness without making it heavy.

The first time I made this soup Russell and I were trying to challenge ourselves to a three day juice cleanse. It was a few months before our wedding, and up until that point we’d been eating whatever we wanted. In the name of “health”, fitting into our suits, and looking good in photos, we decided to get the most out of our masticating juicer and do a cleanse. We didn’t prepare ourselves beforehand, and just stopped eating solid food cold turkey one morning. Long story short, it didn’t go exactly as planned. Day one was going really well until about dinner time, when we were suddenly crazed with hunger and getting irritable. In a panic, I ran to the grocery store to get something to fill our stomaches. Rather than grabbing a frozen pizza or a bag of Doritos, I decided that a healthy vegan soup would mean we could keep up with our cleanse.

I grabbed as much fresh organic produce as I could carry, along with a can of pureed tomatoes and some vegetable stock. We feasted on big bowls of hearty soup, savoring every last spoonful. That could have been the end of it, but the next morning we woke up and started our day with juice all over again. We ended up rationalizing that it still counted as a cleanse if the only meals we ate were healthy, vegan, & grain-free. We got through the three days, juicing three or four times each day and finishing it off with a small healthy meal to help us feel human.

I’m sure that the purists out there would say that we cheated, or that we didn’t complete a real cleanse, but in the end I think it was a total success. We felt amazing afterward and were inspired to eat healthier going forward. I’m sure that the small amounts of sodium and oil in the soup were not ideal for a fast, but if we hadn’t had that bowl of soup that night our cleanse would have ended then and there. Call us weak, but if that was what we needed to keep going, and we felt better afterward, it was worth it.

I’ve made this soup a few times since, and it’s still just as amazing and filling as that first night. This is a truly delicious hearty meal even when you’re not delirious with hunger. To add a little richness we couldn’t afford during our cleanse, we top our soup with some freshly shaved parmesan, a drizzle of olive oil, and serve it with a thick slice of crusty whole wheat sourdough.

I think this soup is completely perfect as is, but this recipe can be used as a guideline, and is easily tweaked to fit your taste. If you don’t like kale, switch it up with chard or spinach or whatever you like, or leave the greens out completely. If you don’t like green beans, or corn, or carrots or anything else, skip it. I think the cauliflower is one of my favorite parts of this soup, but you could swap it for potatoes, or sweet potatoes, or beans, or anything else you want. The first time I made this I skipped the seasoning and used a vegetable broth. Now I usually use chicken stock and plenty of salt and pepper, but that’s totally up to you. I haven’t tried it but I think beef broth would be a really nice addition.

Chunkiest Vegetable Soup

Servings: 6ish
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2 tablespoons olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
1 medium onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 carrots, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 large head cauliflower, cut into bite sized chunks
1 lb green beans, cleaned and cut into 1″ pieces
2 cups frozen corn
3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley, divided
28 oz good canned tomato puree
6 cups chicken (or vegetable) stock
1 medium head of kale, about 3/4 lbs, washed and dried

Heat olive oil in a large heavy bottom stockpot over medium high heat. Add onions, celery & carrots, season with salt and pepper, and saute until tender and just starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Add cauliflower, green beans, and garlic, and continue to brown, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes more. Add corn, 2 tablespoons parsley, tomato puree, and stock and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Cover pot, reduce heat, and simmer low for an hour, stirring every so often.

Tear or slice the spines out of your kale and tear the leaves into small rough pieces. Stir into soup and simmer for 10 or 15 minutes more. When the kale is tender, stir in the remaining parsley, taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Ladle your soup into big bowls and, if desired, grate some parmesan and drizzle a little olive oil over the top, and serve with some crusty bread.