Grandma's Classic Stuffing

 This is a classic stuffing that we absolutely love for Thanksgiving.

Grandma's stuffing

serves a lot!

2 onions

2-3 sticks of celery

1 garlic clove

Salt

Olive oil  

1 stick butter (you might not need it all)

12 cups of dry bread cubes (we use a gallon ziplock bag full of our own sourdough, toasted in the oven)

Parley, sage, rosemary and thyme

1 beaten egg

1 cup chicken broth

Saute onion, garlic and salt in oil and butter

Add spices

Add bread cubes, stir it all up

Add the chicken broth and the beaten egg.  Add melted butter if you didnt use it all and need more moisture OR add more broth.

Stuff as much as you can in your turkey.  When your turkey is done, mix the stuffing from the turkey with what didnt fit and bake at 350 for 30 to 40 mins.  Alternatively, you dont have to stuff your turkey, just bake all the stuffing at 350 for 30-40 minutes.

Pulled turkey sandwiches with leftover turkey

 This was simple and a great use for leftover turkey from Thanksgiving.  Everyone really enjoyed it.

Pulled turkey sandwiches with leftover turkey

serves 4-6

Barbecue sauce

1 tablespoon butter (or olive oil would be fine here)

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup ketchup

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce

scant 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

maybe maple syrup

maybe baking soda

a few cups of leftover turkey, shredded, added last

Saute garlic briefly, till fragrant, in butter.  Add remaining ingredients (but not the turkey) and simmer for 10 minutes.  Taste and adjust sweetness as needed with more sugar or maple syrup.  If the vinegar is too strong, then add a pinch or two of baking soda.  Once the sauce is ready, then add in the turkey.  Cook for a few minutes on low till the turkey is warm.  Serve as sandwiches on good bread or rolls with cole slaw and fries or with cornbread.

Chicken/turkey Pot Pie

Our favorite thing to make with leftover chicken or turkey is pot pie.  I have learned how to make it dairy free, for those that are avoiding dairy or those are keeping kosher.  Either way, it's delicious!  We have also made it vegan, using tofu and veggie broth, and it was just ok, but we really prefer our tofu in a stir fry.

Chicken/turkey Pot Pie
Serves 6-8

6 tablespoons unsalted butter (or coconut oil for dairy free/kosher)
1 large onion, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced
2 cups potatoes, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
6 tablespoons flour
2 cups Chicken Stock (you might need a little more for dairy free/kosher)
1 cup milk (We use goat milk.  Skip the milk for dairy free/kosher)
1 cup sweet young peas (optional, sometimes we use green beans, cut into 1 inch segments)
2 cups shredded cooked chicken or turkey

Basic Piecrust
We like Smitten's all butter crust as it comes together in just 5-10 minutes but store bought would be fine too.  If you are making a kosher/dairy free pot pie, then use filo dough.  I like to either scrunch it up and cover the top with the little messy piles of filo OR I like to just crumble it and scatter it.  Drizzle it with coconut oil.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Heat the butter/oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery, carrots, and potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, for 12-20 minutes until the veggies are almost cooked. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the chicken stock a little at a time, letting it thicken a little before adding more. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the sauce is thick (if it's not already). Stir in the milk and continue to cook for another 4 minutes. Stir in peas or beans (any already cooked veggie), and chicken/turkey, and mix well.

Roll out one of a pie crusts and line it in your deep dish pie plate or a 9 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan (for dairy free/kosher you will skip the bottom crust, see the note above about techniques for the filo dough).  Pour the filling into the prepared pan. Roll a second crust and either place it on top of the filling and cut vents OR make a lattice top.  Tuck the edges into the pan, forming a thick edge and crimp the edges. Put the pie on top of a baking sheet and bake until the crust is golden brown and crusty, 35-45 minutes (mine always takes longer). Let cool for 5 minutes before slicing to serve.

Notes from/for Becky:

My great friend Becky likes to treat it like a soup and adds in a little "better than bouillon", quite a bit of fresh garlic, some dried thyme, basil, and herbes de Provence.

Gravy - the best for Thanksgiving

Below is another guest post from my Mom.  It's her gravy!  The one and only, the best Thanksgiving gravy ever!  It sounds complicated but read it all through first, it's really quite simple.

Thanksgiving - The Gravy

This is always a monumental undertaking.  Thanks to the first time I made gravy this way, I seem unable to compromise and take any shortcuts. It is the best gravy on the planet, thanks to Julia Child's. I make the stock a day or 2 ahead.The first step is making the Brown Turkey Stock. You need raw bones for this - neck bones, perhaps the wing tips, backbones, etc.  Usually, I have chicken bones in the freezer from previous cut up chickens, and I buy turkey backs (sometimes the market has them or if you have a butcher you can ask ahead). So, it is important to have the stock on hand and helpful if you have made it previously and perhaps have it frozen.  So, the first step is the stock and here is the recipe:

Brown Turkey Stock

Raw turkey bones or chicken bones
2-3 tb clear turkey/chicken  fat or oil
Approx 1 cups chopped carrots
Approx 1 cup chopped onions
½ cup Vermouth or dry white wine
4 cups liquid - I use chicken stock from my freezer
2 celery stalks with leaves
Salt, pepper, 1 bay leaf, and thyme.

Brown the bones thoroughly in large frying pan in fat or oil, adding carrots and onions after they are browned. Transfer to heavy saucepan, leaving the fat in the frying pan. Deglaze the pan with the wine, bring to boil, scraping any brown bits left in pan. Add to saucepan along with enough liquid to cover everything. Add the celery and simmer for 30 minutes, skimming fat off the surface.  Add salt and pepper, bay leaf and thyme. Simmer for 1 ½ hours, strain, and set aside in frig or cold room to degrease.

So, now that you have the stock on stand by, you are ready to proceed with the gravy recipe


Old Fashioned Brown Gravy

3 tb clear turkey roasting fat, skimmed from the pan. This can be accomplished while the turkey is roasting.
¼ cup flour
3 cups of hot turkey stock (see above)

1 cup dry white wine or vermouth for deglazing the roasting pan
Degreased turkey roasting juices
Salt and pepper
⅔ tb butter (optional)

The gravy Base:

Make a roux with the turkey fat and flour, stirring slowly while the roux browns. The darker the roux, the more pronounced the flavor. Stir in the turkey stock, simmer for 10 minutes. Refrigerate this while the turkey is finished roasting.

Completing the gravy:

Deglaze the roasting pan with the wine, pouring the wine into the pan and scraping all the stuff into a saucepan, simmering for a few minutes and degrease, skimming off the fat, and pour through a sieve into a glass measuring cup, pushing to get all the juices out.  Put in the fridge or freezer, depending on how much time you have.  The goal is to get the fat to be firm on the top.  Remove the fat and save for next time.   Add the juices to your gravy base

Correct seasoning if necessary, adding salt. And, butter is always good.

Cranberry relish - the one and only for Thanksgiving

This is a guest post from my Mom. She makes the best cranberry relish. It's something that we love to eat with turkey, but we also love it all alone in a little compote. It's delicious and addictive! We like it so much that we make a big batch but it will half easy enough so those measurements are in parentheses after the ingredient name.

GUEST POST

from my Mom

I like the relish tart since it is served with the turkey. This relish is great on turkey sandwiches along with stuffing and a little gravy.

CRANBERRY RELISH 3 lbs/3 quarts cranberries (1.5 pounds or 1.5 quarts) Zest of 3 oranges (zest of 1.5 oranges) Zest of 1 lemon (zest of 1/2 lemon) 1 cup granulated sugar to pulverize with the zest, 2 cups granulated and/or brown sugar for simmering (1/2 cup sugar for the zest, 1 cup for simmering) 1 ½ cups orange juice (3/4 cup) juice of one lemon (one half lemon) 2 tsp grated fresh ginger (1 tsp) Wash the cranberries, pulverize the orange and lemon zests with 1 cup of the granulated sugar (1/2 cup for a half recipe), then combine the cranberries with the rest of the sugar, orange juice, lemon juice, and ginger in the saucepan. Bring to a boil, allowing the liquid to bubble up for 2 - 3 minutes, just until they burst. Set aside. Taste after a ½ hour, stir in a little more sugar if needed.

The Thanksgiving turkey blanket secret

edit to add: ha, I blogged this one twice!  Apparently, it's THAT good!

Do you have just one oven?  Us too.  And that's fine all year, except for Thanksgiving.  That's a tricky one for the oven.  You're rushing right before serving to keep everything warm but it just wont all fit in that regular sized oven.  And you're trying to make the gravy, but feeling so stressed.  So... here's the secret!  Turkey likes to rest before serving.  It likes a good long rest, after all it just spent a long time cooking.  Bring out the turkey blanket!  We learned this trick from the old Burlington Free Press food writer, Debbie Solomon.

Directions for using a turkey blanket:

Cook your turkey.  When the turkey is done cooking, remove it from the pan and put it on a platter then wrap in foil or just leave it in the pan then wrap it in multiple layers of foil.  The roasting pan is now free to deglaze so you can make the gravy.  And then!  Cover it with a heavy blanket (it shouldnt get ruined but it is possible that you could drip grease on it).  Wrap it all around, twice if you can.  It's going to sit there for an hour.  Your oven is now free!  Your roasting pan is now free.  Free!  Make your gravy and heat up those sides.  When your side dishes are almost ready, uncover the turkey and carve it.  Pull those sides out of the oven and enjoy!