Feast plan
In order to prepare all of the food on time, I'll need to begin a day or two early.
Time for a pleasant task: planning Thanksgiving dinner. This year there will be 4 of us. I hope that will be enough people because I’ve planned an ambitious menu. In order to prepare all of the food on time, I’ll need to begin a day or two early and get the big items (like the bread) done to make sure there is enough kitchen space on the big day.
One of the first things to make will be the sweet potato pie. I decided to make this instead of the typical pumpkin pie. I’ve been meaning to make something with sweet potatoes. I’m attracted by that beautiful, orange beta-carotine. The mad-genius-scientist Alton Brown has a SPP recipe on the Food Network website that looks perfect. I wonder if he’ll be remembered as the Julia Child of our generation.
Another unusual item we will prepare this year is a broccoli soup. Originally, we were going to make an onion soup as that is one of my girlfriend’s favorite items. However, in order to have more “green” (read: healthy) items at dinner, we visit the Food Network site again. Michael Chiarello (whose show I’ve never seen) has a recipe for a Very Green Broccoli soup. The soup actually incorporates a number of vegetables (including spinach, probably for color) and will satisfy our requirement for something healthy at the dinner table. I will pair this soup with fresh baked bread. The Professional Chef has a Soft Dinner Rolls recipe that makes 144 rolls. I think a 1/5 recipe will suffice.
In a nod to tradition, we’ll make boxed stuffing. I know, I feel a little guilty about it too. However, it’s what we know, and we like it. I’ve made my own stuffing before, and Saveur has a great Oaxacan stuffing recipe in the latest issue, but Thanksgiving is about comfort food. I won’t try to swim against the stream.
Saveur does have something else I would like to try: a chili rub for turkey. They’ve published a whole article describing a Mexican-style Thanksgiving feast, and the turkey (rubbed with a mixture based on toasted pasilla chilies and a toxic amount of garlic) is an attractive spin on a traditional bird. They also stuff their bird with an onion and an orange, but we’ll probably only roast a half-bird since I’m not serving a whole platoon of thanks-givers. I guess you can still stuff half a turkey, but physics, anatomy and geometry say the stuffing might fall out.
That leaves me with one last item: the veg. I cooked Brussels sprouts last year and that was pretty good. I’m willing to make them again this year, but perhaps I should try something different. A salad? Sweet corn? Asparagus? Fortunately, I have a few days to figure it out. Perhaps there’s some obscure Chinese vegetable my girlfriend would like to stir fry.
As a side note, the All Recipes website has a really great “print” feature. When you choose to print a recipe, the site displays several options for how you want to print the page. You can select a page (or card) size, text size, and whether or not to include some of the ancillary content (like nutritional information or photos of the dish). This is a great example of how to present printable pages to a user.