A Time for Family

I absolutely love Thanksgiving. The concept – families gathering to honor gratitude, and the reality – a cooking finale of my favorite food season are an unbeatable combination. The recipe searches begin in early October and by November I am counting the days and collecting fall leaves to dry for the table.

There seem to be two fundamental food approaches to Thanksgiving dinner. The first reveres tradition of the family feast centered on turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, often after day of games outside and televised football inside. The second approach is a dress up holiday dinner party featuring cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, a three or four course dinner of turkey (maybe), some form of winter squash, a plated salad reliably scattered with dressed up nuts and a dramatic dessert that could or could not contain pumpkin. This approach is all about the creative cook or menu designer.

Our family is firmly entrenched in approach one, and our dinner is a collection of everyone’s old favorites regardless of how many starches, sweets, nuts or breads that means. And there better be plenty of whipped cream for the pumpkin pie! I am not sure why I feel compelled every year to toss in a few new tricks because they all look shocked and ask who brought THAT!

When the Fresh by Northwest editor asked me to write again about Thanksgiving, I decided to share a few tested hints and standby recipes, and let you in on a few that I am going to try and sneak onto the table this year (about as subtly as a stampeding brontosaurus).

Whichever food approach is yours, I hope you have a wonderful time cooking and sharing your bounty with family.

Hints

1. “It’s Thanksgiving, we CAAN’T not have sweet potatoes.” While undeniably yummy, turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes are rich and pretty bland. Any other night of the year cooks would balance those foods with tart flavors and leafy greens, not creamed vegetables, honey glazes, nuts and breads. Without leaving out anyone’s old favorite, you might consider serving a salad of fresh greens and tart vinaigrette. Eaters will probably (there may be a long shot chance) appreciate the flavor balance whether they realize it or not.
2. If you want to feature gorgeous winter squashes, try using them in the table arrangement or as serving bowls for cranberry sauce, fresh tomato relish or stuffing.
3. Have fun in the kitchen by cooking over a period of days and make one or two things from scratch: homemade mincemeat; pumpkin for pie; dinner rolls; cranberry chutney or cutting up and toasting the bread stuffing.
4. If you want to have the best stuffing ever, don’t forget about the recipe for Mother Thomas’s Stuffing.

Editor’s note: Please continue to visit and read – Heidi’s Thanksgiving recipe ideas will be published weekly until Thanksgiving.