What’s your 2016 Thanksgiving Menu?

[Mike Nolan]

Dinner for 3, so we're not going overboard on the side dishes here:

Relish tray (veggies and fruits)
Turkey breast
Stuffing with raisins
Gravy
Some kind of cranberry dish (a friend is bringing it)
Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Green Bean Casserole (If I make it, it'll be just for me. I might wait and make it on Friday as a football snack, though.)
Popovers
Apple Pie
Some kind of pumpkin custard dish (eg, pumpkin pie without the pie shell)
Both my wife and our guest have requested I NOT do mashed potatoes.

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[BakerAunt]

We are actually doing our family Thanksgiving on Saturday, since my husband, the dog, and I will be making a quick trip to California, and eating dinner there with some of my family.

There will be at least four of us, and maybe five. The menu:

Turkey
Pepprridge Farm Stuffing (made with my homemade broth, some celery, and parsley; onion omitted for husband.)
Green Bean Casserole--and some kind of vegetable for my husband who does not like GBC
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy (I'd skip it with the stuffing but my stepdaughter loves them.)
Dried Cherry-Cranberry-Cardamom Relish (which only I will eat--hey, more for me!)
Applesauce (homemade of course)
Pumpkin Pie (my variation of my mother's recipe; I'll try the buttermilk crust with it)
Small Eggnog Cakes made in my Nordic Ware Thanksgiving mini-loaf pans My stepdaughter does not care for pumpkin pie, and she can also take some home with her. We can eat the rest on our trip west.)

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

The eggnog cakes sound interesting, what recipe do you use? Do you make your own eggnog for that?

[Italiancook]

Last year, hubby and I decided we no longer like turkey. So we're having a quite simple holiday meal. Fettuccini Alfredo with tossed salad. Initially, I suggested steak, because I have them in the freezer. Later, I changed to the Alfredo, because we think it's more special and festive than steak.

It's special, because I make it only once a year. In my opinion, it's an artery clogger with the parmesan cheese, cream and egg. We love it, though.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 12 months ago by Italiancook.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 12 months ago by Italiancook.

[Mike Nolan]

According to the food historians, the original recipe for Alfredo sauce used just Parmesan Reggiano cheese, very slowly heated so that it doesn't break. Cream was added by other chefs both because it's cheaper than Parmesan Reggiano and because it makes the recipe less likely to fail.

I've never used egg in an Alfredo sauce, though I do use cream. I actually prefer using a 4 cheese blend (parmesan, romano, asiago and provolone), Sams Club sells an excellent blend.

My wife used to order the Crab Alfredo at Red Lobster, but they discontinued it for a while, and when they brought it back it had garlic in it.

My usual rant about using garlic where it DOES NOT BELONG goes here.

[Italiancook]

The Alfredo recipe I use comes from "Papa Rossi's Secrets of Italian Cooking" (Benett & Rossi). When I first read the recipe, I thought the egg was unusual, but after making it once, we became converts. I didn't know that it originally was only parm-regg.

I didn't know Sam's sells a 4 cheese blend, but I don't like Asiago. The last few years, Sam's has carried a Romano we really like for meatballs. Normally, we "import" Italian cheeses from Chicago, but we don't feel like we're deprived when relatives haven't been here to bring us Italian-made Romano. I'm pleased with the Sam's Romano. Don't know if they have the same brand this year, and I can't recall the brand name.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Italiancook.

[Mike Nolan]

Sams brands vary over time and possibly by region, it's usually who they can cut deals with. (A company I used to work with dealt with both WalMart and Sams, the folks in Benton Arkansas are tough negotiators, a point they drive home in the sales rep waiting area, where there's a coffee vending machine rather than free coffee.)

Sams used to carry Cabot cheeses here, now they have Tilamook cheeses. They're good cheeses (we even took a tour of the Tilamook plant in Oregon years ago), but the Tilamook cheeses at Sams don't include a low-fat cheddar and the Cabot cheeses did.

[BakerAunt]

Mike--I have posted the recipe here:

Eggnog Cake

I first baked the recipe in November 2013, and it is extremely popular with my family and friends. I don't make my own eggnog, but I buy a lowfat organic eggnog. (I can drink some without any guilt!) I freeze eggnog every year to use in this cake, and in my adaption of the eggnog scones on the KAF website.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by BakerAunt.

[cwcdesign]

Since I'll be working Thursday morning, I won't be cooking for Thanksgiving. We'll be going to my Mom's Senior Living Community for lunch. The food's not bad (they have a former chef from our resort in the kitchen - anger issues)and he's quite talented with what they give him. I can't get used to the fact that the restaurants here offer a la carte menus as well as a feast.

The market has fresh turkey breast on sale so I will probably
Roast one over the weekend

[Italiancook]

We're no longer having Fettuccini Alfredo. We're having a fully cooked ham, since the oven temp is broken and I can't bake one. We're also having stovetop candied sweet potatoes, broccoli, mashed potatoes with ham gravy -- I know, ham gravy is really too salty for good health, so I'll only have a little of it. We'll buy a pumpkin pie from a local restaurant. I don't like pie. The only pie I ever "make" is lemon meringue pie for my husband. The pumpkin pie is also for him.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 12 months ago by Italiancook.

[Mike Nolan]

These days we seem to have to choose between a ham slice or a spiral sliced ham, both fully cooked. The spiral sliced ham is really too much for the two of us. Ham is higher in carbs than other proteins, probably due to sugar-curing, so we haven't had much ham lately.

Is your oven totally non-functional at this point, or could you use an oven thermometer to reheat a fully-cooked ham?

I'll make the pie dough tomorrow night and make the pie Wednesday evening, which is also when I'll check to make sure the turkey breast is fully thawed. Dinner's at 5 or later, so I don't have to start cooking at an ungodly hour. When I was a boy, my grandmother used to do two seatings for Thanksgiving dinner, one at 11AM for her relatives from Iowa and another one at 1:30 for the local family, including us, after my grandfather closed the drug store for the day. She'd start one turkey cooking on Wednesday and a second one at 5AM on Thursday. And these were 18-22 pound behemoths!

[Italiancook]

Your grandmother was quite amazing, Mike!

My ovens are a little less than 25 degrees too cool. But I can reheat the ham by using an oven thermometer and adjusting the temperature. As I type, I'm gathering the courage to try to fix this problem myself. I do not understand computers. I have the instruction booklet on the stovetop, have it opened to the right page, and have used the Options function to make sure it's still set to Fahrenheit. Part of my procrastination is that I can tell from reading the instruction booklet that a lot of recalibrating the temperature is intuitive. I have none of that where computers are concerned.

BTW, I said in my previous post I would make ham gravy. What was I thinking? Without cooking the ham myself, I don't have any drippings for the gravy.

I didn't know ham has more carbs than protein. That's interesting.

[Mike Nolan]

Ham has more carbs than do some other types of proteins, like beef or chicken. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[Italiancook]

Thanks for clearing that up, Mike. Maybe I misunderstood. I tackled the recalibration and am pleased to report that it's easy. Instructions scroll across the screen. Easy to follow. It's a time-consuming process, because I'm adjusting only 5 degrees at a time. I don't want to go over my 400 degree goal.

[Mike Nolan]

How is it handling hysteresis?

Hysteresis, for those who don't remember the posts on it from the King Arthur Baking Circle, is the process by which thermostats cycle the heat on and off, so that the temperature averages out to the desired temperature.

An oven will go past the desired temperature, perhaps by as much as 25 degrees, because heating elements don't instantly stop producing heat when turned off, then the temperature will drift down back through the desired temperature until it gets enough below that temperature to trigger another heating cycle.

Placement of the sensor(s) is an important factor for the oven designer, as is the developments of thermal (air) currents under various types of oven loads. Any baker who has tried to bake 3 large fully loaded cookie sheets at the same time will have experienced the way the oven load diminishes air flow to certain areas (usually the middle sheet.)

Putting a heavy item (a thermal mass) in the oven, like oven tiles or something made of iron or steel, is a way of narrowing the peaks and valleys in the hysteresis cycle, but of course that lengthens the pre-heat time because that thermal mass has to absorb heat. And that thermal mass can also impact the air flow in the oven.

Convection oven fans are designed to increase air circulation, which generally means more constant heat and faster cooking times, because the oven is more efficient at heating the cooking utensils and the food in them. It also generally speeds up the hysteresis cycle time and, if properly designed, will narrow the range between the top and bottom temperatures seen at the sensor.

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