Stuffed anything is good this time of year -- and stuffing the cooked vegetable back in its original shell makes for an especially festive treat. The blogger behind Kitchen Illiterate put it simply: "Stuffed squash is stuffed goodness."
We second that -- especially in such a vibrant, flavorful concoction. First, the squash is roasted on its own. In the meantime, you cook the stuffing on the stove, a spicy cumin-cayenne scented rice with black beans, peppers and queso fresco. Once the squash is softened, you toss in the stuffing and throw it all back into the oven for ten minutes to allow the flavors to meld together, a roasted richness permeating the entire dish.
In a refreshing alternative to the tired go-to chicken soup, tortilla soup is just as simple a concoction thanks to the addition of a few lively ingredients, namely jalapeno, lime, cilantro and tomatillos. Here, Flickr user umamigirl prepared Serious Eat's "kitchen sink style" Quick Tortilla Soup recipe, which we can only hope to be as gloriously colorful in flavor as it is in appearance.
Though this tortilla soup makes use of a plethora of ingredients, the beauty of the brothy soup is its flexibility, both in terms of taste as well as the clever cook's "what-do-I-have-on-hand-that-may-go-bad" approach. Have an affinity to garlic? Throw in as many cloves as your heart desires. Are there bell peppers going soft? Toss them in at liberty. Distaste for cilantro? Substitute some parsley in its place. Either way, with a base as simple as a can of diced tomatoes, broth and cooked chicken, tossing in whatever additional ingredients you crave guarantees to lead to a delicious bowl of soup.
Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.
Before writing this piece, I checked the Slashfood archives to make sure that I wasn't repeating something that had recently been covered. I needn't have worried; while we've had a few posts on German food over the years, our coverage has tended to focus on chocolate cake, beer, and potato salad, in that order.
While unfortunate, this is totally understandable. Although once a respected cuisine, German food has fallen on hard times. Rich in flavor, it is also rich in fat and salt, and lacks the exuberant seasoning of Italian food or the light freshness of nouvelle cuisine. It is a warming cuisine for a cold climate and, with its emphasis on preserved vegetables and cheap cuts of meat, it seems out-of-place in our fast-paced, refrigerator-dependent world.
The thing is, German food is attractive, cheap, and flavorful. Easy to prepare and a pleasure to eat, it is home cooking in the most meaningful sense of the word. What's more, by reducing serving sizes, playing with accompaniments and adjusting ingredients, it is possible to enjoy the reassuring warmth of German seasoning without breaking our increasingly health-conscious American diets.
When I was growing up in Virginia, my babysitter often referred to my family as "the carpetbaggers." This wasn't all that surprising; my parents were from New England, and the folkways of rural Virginia were somewhat bizarre to them. Even so, they quickly adapted and even learned to embrace the culture of the area. Because of their zealous adoption of all things Virginia, many of our major holidays were celebrated with a huge, salty Virginia ham.
When I undertook the reverse migration from Virginia to New York, I worried that I would not be able to get hold of real Smithfield hams. Luckily, however, one of my local butchers carries them; it seems that they are a standard Italian dish on the feast day of Saint Nicholas. As the butcher rang up my sixteen pound chunk of pork, he and I had an interesting conversation about the art of cooking Virginia ham. Interestingly, many of his customers are actually scared of Smithfield ham.
In truth, this isn't really all that surprising. After all, Smithfield hams are exceedingly salty, very ugly, and take a long time to prepare. However, they are also amazingly delicious, and constitute one of the most truly American of dishes. Luckily, they are also fairly simple to cook, freeze beautifully, and pretty much all of the leftovers are delicious.
Whether you call it filling, dressing, or stuffing (and whether you know that, to some, there is a distinction between each); whether you make it from sourdough, cornbread, or white bread (or spelt if you're sensitive to wheat or are Ancient Roman); whether you embellish it with chestnuts, oysters, cranberries or chorizo; no Thanksgiving table is complete without stuffing.
It plumps up in the roasting turkey's cavity and then cozies up to the finished product on your plate -- and both benefit, as your taste buds do (though your waistline doesn't), from a generous dousing of gravy. Like meatloaf, there are as many recipes for it as there are cooks to prepare it, and, also like meatloaf, nearly every cook thinks theirs is definitive. To its fans, the reason we call it stuffing is not the technical definition -- a working understanding of which could be "any food that fills, at least theoretically, a cavity in another food" -- but the obvious fact that you "stuff" it into "your face."
Quick: what are the four fruit species native to North America?
You probably immediately got blueberries and cranberries, for an instant two of four. After speculating about pumpkins before remembering that they are not exclusively indigenous to the Americas, you might have had a eureka moment about concord grapes (three of four). And if you grew up in the American south or plains, and if someone remembered to point them out, you deserve the back pat you gave yourself for remembering pawpaws (four of four, with extra credit if you've ever actually partaken).
Some hate on blueberries, which share the same genus as cranberries, but this time of year, everyone loves the species Vaccinium, whose call name is the cranberry. To Native Americans who introduced cranberries to hungry pilgrims, the plant was called sassamanash, and was known for the same cleansing properties that your urologist and your mother cite today. So, yes, we drink cranberry juice all year long, but along with stuffing (filling if you're Pennsylvania Dutch, or dressing if you're southern, or "pass the platter" if you're an avuncular distant uncle on his second beer before kickoff) cranberry sauce is the signature side dish of Thanksgiving. Here is a crash course on cranberries.
The centerpiece of every Thanksgiving table is a gargantuan roasted turkey, preferably glistening golden brown and smelling incredibly good. This site gives the basics for defrosting and roasting the bird, but I have a few touches that I personally enjoy.
Herbs: Slowly and gently, slide your fingers between the turkey breast and the skin. They should come apart fairly easily. When you have created a good-sized space, you can insert fresh thyme, rosemary, or (my preference) sage. Not only does it look really cool when you serve the bird, but the herbs add a little extra flavor to the breast. You can also, if you wish, sprinkle a little salt and pepper in there for flavor.
Salt and Pepper: When preparing the bird for the oven, mix a batch of kosher salt and pepper in a small ramekin. After rinsing out the cavity, rub in some of the mix. After brushing melted butter into the skin, rub the outside of the bird with the salt and pepper mix.
Fatback: Buy a slab of fatback or salt pork and cut off four 1/4" thick slices. Before roasting the turkey, tuck one behind each wing and each drumstick. This will lend a nice smoky flavor to the bird and will also help keep it juicy. You can use the rest to make southern-style string beans.
Roasting Bag: Reynolds' plastic cooking bags make roasting a turkey much, much easier; for that matter, they also help keep it moist.
Stuffing: Over the past few years, stuffing the turkey has gone out of vogue. Personally, I still believe that a flavorful stuffing can create an exchange of flavors that is amazing. Unfortunately, Pepperidge Farm bread crumb stuffing, which my mother always used as a base, and which I used until a few years ago, has started adding high fructose corn syrup. This year, I'll be looking for a fresh recipe; right now, I'm leaning toward modifying this one from Alton Brown.
The Wishbone: If you want to break the wishbone on Thanksgiving day, pull it out while carving the turkey. Boil it for a half hour or so, then hang it on a cabinet handle to dry. If you boil it sufficiently, it should release a lot of its oils and harden up pretty nicely. Of course, the best method is to let it dry out for a few days, but I always have a hard time waiting!
While I tend to be a big fan of experimentation, I'd have to argue that Thanksgiving dinner is one of the few places where one should try to be traditional. With this in mind, I tend to stick to more mellow flavors and a Western European spice palette. Save the banana-bread stuffed turkey with cranberry lime glaze for Christmas; at Thanksgiving, stick to butter, salt, pepper, and sage!
Though the sharing of treats on All Hallow's Eve traces back to the holiday's roots as an ancient celebration, Trick or Treating is a phenomenon of the distinctly American holiday of Halloween. Though trick or treating is at least a century old, defining the treat as candy is relatively new: as recently as the World War Two era, the treat was likely to be a doughnut, a sip of cider, even an apple (imagine trying to get away with that today!).
Even with the advent of widespread manufacturing, candy-making was as expected a part of a homemaker's repertoire as canning. Around Halloween time, a homemaker sometimes spent days in the kitchen, rattling glass thermometers and pouring vials of exotic oils, in order to fill small waxed-paper bags with the house specialty (each cook was expected to have one): chewy nougats, bright sour balls, snowy vanilla drops, tinted coconut patties, home-dunked chocolate cherries, snapping shards of praline, hand-pulled taffy, and, of course, fudge.
Oh, sure, in the rich part of town, fancy ladies doled out the local confectioner's lollipops and jelly beans (and the occasional rum ball for a determinedly cheerful chaperone), but in the move to consumer culture many of these concoctions migrated to Easter baskets. In some of our minds, Halloween shall always belong to old-fashioned treats. Here is a sampling of online resources for retro treats (and perhaps a couple of tricks!).
If your CSA share has been anything like mine this season, you've gotten bundle upon bundle of beets. I've exhausted all my standard recipes and barely made a dent. What to do with all of those beets?
How about a simple and hearty salad! Roasting beets allows all the natural sugars to concentrate, creating a luscious, sweet and savory dish. Feel like giving it an extra pop? Add goat cheese and give your mouth the chance to take pleasure in all the textures of this salad.
Nutrition Fact: The delicate beet greens, which are an excellent source of potassium, folic acid, and magnesium, make this dish even more healthful.
If you live in New York and have walked by Rockefeller Center today, you were probably taken aback. Oh no wait, if you're a New Yorker, you're never taken aback.
You think you've seen everything? Well, Ocean Spray, for the third year, has constructed a sizable pit at Rockefeller Center and filled it with a cranberry bog. They call it "The Big Apple Bog." The bog will be moving next to L.A.'s Kodak theater, and then to Boston. The purpose? Education, and the celebration of the cranberry harvest!
The people wading around in there are real cranberry farmers, and are there to answer questions. There's also cranberry farm equipment placed around the square. Have a look in the gallery!
Gallery: Cranberry Bog by Ocean Spray at Rockefeller Center
I've been binging on pears lately, as they've been bursting from the boxes and tables of my farmers market. Mine aren't nearly as photogenic as these lovely ones (I find it hard to transport them from market to home on my bike without incurring a few bruises) although they've certainly been delicious. I'm hoping to buy a bunch for cheap, in order to make a batch of pear butter, which is one of my very favorite fall treats.
A couple of weeks ago I got a call from my dad. He had phoned because he had just watched one of the Thanksgiving episodes of Fork You and wanted to give me a little advice. The piece of wisdom? Never offer to show someone how to do something on camera if, in fact, you don't know how to do it. The thing I didn't know how to do? Carve a turkey!
I agreed with him and explained that I didn't know that I was going to be asked to show the folks at home how to carve a turkey, it just sort of happened. However, now that I've been in that situation, I'm now making a point of learning how to carve a turkey. Thankfully, the New York Times printed a helpful article today with step-by-step instructions on the best way to carve up your Thanksgiving bird. Their tip? Do the carving away from the table in the kitchen for best results.
Is your family totally devoted to canned cranberry sauce, despite all your best efforts to sway them to the world of orange-scented homemade compote? If so, maybe you're looking for a way to spice up that cranberry sauce (because serving it in the shape of the can does leave something to be desired). Paula Deen, in her trademark over-the-top style, has come up with a new way of serving canned cranberry sauce. Here's how she described it in a USA Today column.
"I gave a twist to cranberry sauce one year. You take a can of the jellied sauce and slice it in quarter-inch pieces. Then you mix up cream cheese and hot sauce and a little mayo, and you make up sandwiches - no bread, just the cheese mix in between cranberries."
Sounds like an interesting approach to cranberry sauce to me, although the purists would have a heart attack if you suggested adulterating their precious canned sauce with mayo and cream cheese.
Late last week, I happened to drop mention of the Ginger Squash we often have for Thanksgiving around my family table. I got several requests for the recipe and so I'm now going to do my best to create one for you, despite the fact that this is not a dish I've ever tried to write down and I don't think I've ever made it exactly the same way twice.
My cousin Jeremy is the one who first innovated this dish, using freshly ground ginger (although dried works) and a lots of cream. One year he wasn't able to come and so I did my best to create something akin to his regular offering. Depending on how many people are going to be at dinner, I buy either two slabs of Hubbard Squash or two Butternut Squashes (Acorn Squashes also work well). I steam them until they are fork tender on the stove top because the oven is occupied with the turkey.
When the are completely cooked, I scrape all the flesh off the skin and put it into a large bowl. I mash it together with butter (2-3 tablespoons), a little whole milk, fresh ginger grated on a microplane (between 1/2 a teaspoon and a teaspoon, depending on how pungent it is and how much squash you are working with), salt and pepper. When everything is combined, I pull out the trusty old immersion blender and give it a few whirs with that to ensure a smooth texture. I tend to think that the squash is plenty sweet just the way it is, but if you like it a bit sweeter, feel free to add a little brown sugar.
.jpg)
.jpg)
When I was growing up in Virginia, my babysitter often referred to my family as "the carpetbaggers." This wasn't all that surprising; my parents were from New England, and the folkways of rural Virginia were somewhat bizarre to them. Even so, they quickly adapted and even learned to embrace the culture of the area. Because of their zealous adoption of all things Virginia, many of our major holidays were celebrated with a huge, salty Virginia ham._thumbnail.jpg "Burlap Ham")
_thumbnail.jpg "Dry Ham")
Whether you call it filling, dressing, or stuffing (and whether you know that, to some, there is a distinction between each); whether you make it from sourdough, cornbread, or white bread (or spelt if you're sensitive to wheat or are 
Quick: what are the four fruit species native to North America? .jpg)
If your CSA share has been anything like mine this season, you've gotten bundle upon bundle of beets. I've exhausted all my standard recipes and barely made a dent. What to do with all of those beets? 
What Can I Get You Folks? - Server Revenge
Reality-Show Celebrities Serve Up Chef Curtis Stone's 'Hundred-Dollar Burger'
Foods Celebrity Chefs Hate
