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BTW--the darker the roux, the better the sauce. You may think it's burned, but it's not. Trust me.
Can't be all that secret; you can spot that stuff a mile away.Yes, but what kind of gravy?
Milk/cream/mushroom/KFC (my cousins' "secret family recipe")
Love cranberry-orange relish. If you have a lot left over, cook it gently with a little extra OJ until the peel's translucent, add sugar until it starts jelling, and bottle it up as cranberry-orange marmalade. It sets up firm -- cranberries have even more pectin and acid than citrus fruit.Ahhh and cranberries. Cranberry/orange relish, jellied cranberry sauce, whole cranberry sauce, I don't care. I love 'em, cranberries, those distinctive-flavored, festively-colored tart little berries.
Yum. We did those with corn husks and nixtamal, and made them for Christmas.Pasteles is my favorite. But with chicken, not pork butt.
A good gumbo is unbeatable. Did you ever find yourself tempted to skip the rest and just have more gumbo?Thanksgiving at our place always, always starts with gumbo. Crab, oyster, fish sausage, and shrimp. Om nom nom nom. It is the bestest.
There's a lot to be said for it. Green bean casserole and that dessert you make with pie filling and dry cake mix are the apex of a certain era of American cooking.I gained five pounds just reading this thread. My family demands green bean casserole.
Way too sweet for me. I'll take a hard winter squash, skinned then nuked in wax paper, with butter and salt and pepper.What, nobody else needs the obligatory sweet potato bake with melted marshmallows on top? You people are insane!
Broccoli, lightly dressed with Hellman's mayo. Better than you'd think, if you haven't tried it.Creamed Cauliflower, with gobs of melted cheese baked over it.
It's right there in the old Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School cookbook. Oyster stuffing was big wherever cooks could get oysters. The difference is that Southerners on the Atlantic Seaboard kept making it.Oyster stuffing is totally not Yankee.
Is that uncommon? It's within canon for my mother's side of the family.Y'all ever heard of milk stuffing--soak the cornbread or bread croutons in milk?
It's in a lot of my antique American and British pre-1900 cookbooks.
What, you don't like vegetable snot? Okra's fine if you put it in at the last minute; otherwise, not. People who just want a more glutinous mouthfeel in their soups should skip the okra and add a packet or two of unflavored gelatin.You can put in okra, but then you have to listen to my lecture on how okra is the booger of the vegetable world, and it's just not worth it, trust me.
Is that the one with fruit and Cool Whip in a graham cracker crust?There'd be trouble in River City if I didn't make my Million Dollar Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving and Christmas!
Well, that's closer. I'm holding out for p'cahhhn or puh-conn, depending on your system of transliteration.Oh, and it's pronounced: Pee-Cahn
PEEcans are those nasty bitter rancid dried-out nuts with the red-dyed shells. They're eaten by snowbirds, who must not know any better.(a Pee-Can is what Grandma kept at her bedside at night)
Utah, land of Funeral Potatoes and Frog Eye Salad. You might be able to find gumbo makings upstate, but if I were you I'd just buy the specialized groceries online. If you've got a local Trader Joe's, they're good for frozen seafood that isn't square and breaded. Sometimes they even have cheap langostinos.I do live in Utah so Gumbo does not exist here unless probably up state where the restaurants are.
p'cahhhn - this one.
I have six p'cahhn trees in my yard.
mmmm....pecan tarts (mini bite-sized pecan pies). Granny makes them every year.
Oh, man. Nothing says "regional cooking" (and sometimes "ethnic background") like people's Thanksgiving customs. Is it dressing, is it stuffing, is there cornbread in it, do you eat out on the porch, and anyway how do you pronounce "pecan"? It's been fun watching Icerose and Kitty Pryde go back and forth: Deseret meets Gumbo Coast.
Icerose, did you ever make white sauce from scratch? A roux is kind of like that, except you work at a fairly low temperature and keep stirring the flour and fat while it gradually browns. (Also, you don't dump a bunch of milk in it, then serve it on toast topped with grated boiled egg; but let us not dwell on these painful memories.)
There's a lot to be said for it. Green bean casserole and that dessert you make with pie filling and dry cake mix are the apex of a certain era of American cooking.
Way too sweet for me. I'll take a hard winter squash, skinned then nuked in wax paper, with butter and salt and pepper.
Utah, land of Funeral Potatoes and Frog Eye Salad. You might be able to find gumbo makings upstate, but if I were you I'd just buy the specialized groceries online. If you've got a local Trader Joe's, they're good for frozen seafood that isn't square and breaded. Sometimes they even have cheap langostinos.
Frog Eye salad isn't too bad as long as they rinse the pasta, j-ello is a bane of my existence and I take pains to avoid it whenever possible. Funeral potatoes...yeah we won't go there. Nothing like tasteless sludge topped with corn flakes. You'd think by now they could come up with a new dish for funerals. I mean you're already grieving you don't need to be gagging at the same time. Maybe I'm just not built for Utah cuisine.
I'll check it out, I still can't buy seafood though. But I'll see what else they have.
Frog eye salad--I had to look that one up. Gack! Seems to be similar to a Waldorf Salad, another revolting dish that doesn't deserve to be called salad.
It's interesting that there's a special type of dish for funerals. Maybe that's the only time when the appearance of that dish doesn't cause additional sadness
I thought of another killer good Thanksgiving dish--last year my friend the fancy caterer cooked us the turkey covered in bacon, sitting on a bed of bacon, with bacon lining the insides. OMG you have never tasted such a tender juicy bird. Anyone else ever made the bacon turkey? It's a winner.
Cornbread stuffing with lots of sage and onions
Heh. I would drink the stuff as a lovely warm beverage, if people didn't look at me funny...Am I the only gravy-less AW cook? I didn't grow up having gravy for Tgiving, and I have never made it.
Utah, land of Funeral Potatoes and Frog Eye Salad
...lemon jello made with (IIRC) ginger ale, with shredded carrots, finely chopped celery, and minced-up green peppers.
Served with a dollop of Hellman's mayonnaise on top.
Heh. Jello salad, that staple of church suppers...my mom made the one with lemon jello made with (IIRC) ginger ale, with shredded carrots, finely chopped celery, and minced-up green peppers.
Served with a dollop of Hellman's mayonnaise on top.
I know, huh? If you think about it, it explains sooooo much about how I turned out.
The closest recipe I can find is this one.
ewwww, very, very wrong.
As an ex-pat Brit, I find the whole jello salad thing bizarre.
Jello.is.a.dessert
This from someone who's country introduced moi to Spotted Dick!
AND it comes in a can!
*envisions Mel Brooks making a movie where canned spotted dick is an abomination...much the same way canned salmon was in The Meaning of Life...*
I know!mmmmmmmmm spotted dick in a can....yummmy
I know!
Now if we could only get 'em to can Yum Yums (Gregg's Bakery, Scotland)...and meat pasties...lincolnshire sausage...sausage biscuits...
*contemplates opening up a British Cafe', here in the...uh hem...COLONIES*
That's what she said!ah, yes, the great British Banger.
I may end up making my own. I've found a website that sells hog casings, I just need to find the grinder, casing stuffer thingie.
Heh. Jello salad, that staple of church suppers...my mom made the one with lemon jello made with (IIRC) ginger ale, with shredded carrots, finely chopped celery, and minced-up green peppers.
Served with a dollop of Hellman's mayonnaise on top.