Think it's too early to start planning Thanksgiving dinner? Think again! Nov. 26 may seem like a long way off, but for the holiday host, it's right around the corner. That's why each Tuesday until Turkey Day, we'll bring you preparation tips to ensure your Thanksgiving is as smooth as your gravy (should be).
1. Get a head count.
Now's the time to start inviting people to Thanksgiving dinner. If you're thinking about it, chances are good your friends and family are, too. So if your cousin is bringing her new boyfriend, and both sets of grandparents are coming to town, as well as your parents and siblings, you're going to need to figure out how to seat everyone at your small table with three mismatched chairs.
Getting a head count this early ensures you'll have enough time to borrow tables, chairs and whatever other furniture items you need to so that everyone can eat comfortably, and then have a place to lounge when the tryptophan-wine combo sets in. And don't forget to find out who's a vegetarian, who's allergic to nuts, and any other dietary restrictions you'll be dealing with. The last thing you want to hear as you put your orange-scented green beans with toasted almonds on the table is that your cousin's new boyfriend has a severe nut allergy.
Though Thanksgiving is yet over a month away, eager foodies have already started plotting the year's most indulgent feast. And for such mouthwatering inspiration, we thank our friends at norecipes.com for this Cinnamon Harissa Turkey recipe. Omitting gravy, Marc brined the turkey in water, brown sugar, cloves, salt and pepper before applying a rub with cinnamon, sumac, cumin, coriander and harissa to create a gloriously golden, moist and spicy-sweet bird.
Marc created an entire West Asian Thanksgiving meal last year, accompanying the heritage turkey with a Fiery Cinnamon Cranberry Sauce, Tahini Mashed Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts Caramelized with Pomegranate Molasses and more. And though we were wowed by his creativity, we wonder how far we'd be willing to stray from old family recipes.
Would you be open to shirking tradition and creating an exotic Thanksgiving meal this year? Tell us how much you're willing to deviate in the comments!
Turkey, Blue Cheese and Caramelized Onion Tart. Photo: Sarah LeTrent.
Few of us want to make a complicated lasagna for solo dining -- by day six, you'll never want to see lasagna again! In this series, AOL Food staffer Sarah LeTrent taste-tests simple recipes suitable for a "table for one."
Despite appearances, tarts are quite rudimentary to assemble. Plus they are a simple and elegant way to use up your leftovers. When I found my refrigerator stocked with a lone baked turkey breast, blue cheese and an onion, the endless versatility of tarts struck a cord of culinary inspiration.
Seems like caramelized onions and pungent cheese -- be it blue, Roquefort or gorgonzola -- have an affinity for one another in many recipes. This savory tart is no exception: The sweetness of the onions is absolutely ambrosial with tangy fromage bleu. And while turkey tends to be overlooked in months that don't end in "ember," it is used here as a protein-packed topping.
Part of a continuing summer series by grilling expert Gena Knox.
Turkey burgers can be a healthy alternative to hamburgers, but they can easily lack flavor. I have enjoyed creating recipes to make what is traditionally a dry, flavorless burger into a delicious meal you will want to serve again and again.
There are usually two options when buying ground turkey. Turkey breast is 99 percent fat free, but has little flavor. Then there is ground turkey that includes some dark meat and skin, but can easily contain just as much fat as ground beef. Most of the time I purchase both and create a mixture of 75 percent breast meat and 25 percent dark meat. This gives the burger nice balance and moisture. Short on time, I use the breast meat, but add a few extra ingredients for flavor and moisture.
My favorite creation just may be my most recent: Italian Turkey Burgers.
When a friend of mine recently asked me to help throw her a baby shower, I had many questionable suggestions-- like making it race-car rather than baby themed (accepted) to making a baby-shaped red-velvet cake with gooey red filling, except the diaper part, which would have brown icing filling (rejected).
But one of the things she was most excited about was my suggestion that I make a meatcake. That is, a cake made of meat, an idea I had found (like so many nutty ideas) on the interwebs. I took the concept, but created my own recipes--two, since a non-red-meat eater needed turkey. It may sound peculiar but the result was delicious and even rather spectacular. If you want to try it yourself....
I have been hooked on Maras pepper ever since my first encounter with it a few years ago in lamb meatballs. It's a unique mildly hot red pepper from the Kahramanmara? region of Turkey, just north of Syria. After a lengthy process of drying the peppers and then grinding them, the pepper is sent to markets all over Turkey.
Maras is delicious with vegetables, seafood, and steak. Unlike many peppers, this one has a subtlety; a heat that seems to creep up on one's palate in the most gentle and delicate way. I find that many hot peppers offer a heat that overwhelms the flavor of the pepper. Maras pepper is unique in its well balanced complex taste and level of heat.
It's official. Turkey Day has come and gone for another year (although the leftover season has only just begun). My turkey was nearly perfect, the gravy was lump free and the roasted sweet potatoes were incredibly sweet and tender (all I did was roast them, wrapped in foil, in the toaster oven for a couple of hours. Easiest side dish ever). However, my Brussels Sprouts were a little too crunchy and using the ricer to mash the potatoes took forever (and resulted in cold 'taters).
I want to know how your meal turned out. Did your turkey take longer than anticipated? Did your guests rave about your mashed potatoes? We want to hear success stories and disasters alike.
For your ever-so-gently-surreal Thanksgiving viewing pleasure, Alinea's Grant Achatz breaks down and sous vides a turkey -- just like Grandma used to. No vacuum sealer or immersion circulator needed. Sadly, there's no nitrogen-blasted green bean casserole or marshmallow and yam alginate spheres on the menu this time, but hey -- there's always Christmas.
Watch Part 2 -- Sous Vide Stuffing and Deep-Fried Bourbon Pumpkin Pie on a Flaming Cinnamon Stick on YouTube and sign up for free recipes at alinea-mosaic.com.
Having grown up on sterile, deep frozen turkeys, I have always had the sneaking suspicion that my Thanksgiving was missing something. About a year ago, my wife and I moved into a Dominican neighborhood, an experience that has brought me into contact with an almost endless array of new, exciting foods and food services, notably the collection of "Vivero" joints in my area. Basically, these are sort of like a cross between a butcher and a pound. You go in, choose your bird or rabbit, tell them what you want done with it, and come back in a half hour to pick it up.
I've been circling the Vivero for a while, curious but also a little nervous about getting my poultry from a place that looks so much like an animal shelter. Still, with turkey costing a fortune in my neighborhood, I felt like this might be the year to try out a fresh bird. Because of the season, the owners recently got in a shipment of about 400 turkeys, and I found that the whole process was surprisingly easy. Basically, I picked out my bird (I was looking for an animal in the 15-pound range that looked guilty), and told them that I wanted it plucked, cleaned, de-legged, beheaded, but generally left intact. Explaining this took a while, as the workers only spoke Spanish and I only spoke English. Still, between us, we managed to get it all worked out.
About a half hour later, my bird was ready. When she saw that the legs were still attached (my Spanish, clearly, is not very good), the lady at the window gave me a funny look, but immediately endeavored to make the package a little less unwieldy. Her method was to, basically, jam the turkey's feet up its rear end. She managed to get one in before giving up.
It's the day before Thanksgiving! We can't wait! Here, in one handy place, is a roundup of our 8 Best Thanksgiving Tips.
Over the years we've covered everything from First Time Thanksgiving (a great recipe and anecdote collection by Bruce Watson) to Bento Box Thanksgivings (an inspired series of leftovers ideas from Emily Matchar). The list here will take you from wine and centerpieces to turkey brining - as well as pleasing the vegetarians and the health-conscious.
Make sure you read these over before the big day tomorrow!
For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.
This post-Thanksgiving bento, from FoxyMartini, turns mashed potatoes into a Gray Chinchilla with a bit of food coloring, raisin eyes, ham nose, and nori whiskers. Belly is white American cheese. He sits atop several slices of Fuji apple and a container of gravy sauce for the adjacent turkey.
For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.
Here's another Thanksgiving-inspired bento, from Mushmo on the Live Journal bento community. We've got roasted potato cubes, beef-stuffed mushroom caps, sliced carrots, tomatoes and onion, green bean casserole and a cranberry-apple crumble, all topped with mini crescent rolls and decorated with turkey flags.
You spend a good deal of time buying, prepping, and preparing ingredients. You may have even brined your turkey (please do!). But have you ever gone through all of that, and then you're faced with a wonderfully cooked bird and have no idea how to take it apart efficiently? The last thing you want to do after making an excellent turkey is mutilate it with bad technique or haphazard slices.
The above video should give you a quick and easy reference on how to cut and plate your turkey. This outlines taking care of the gobbler in the kitchen, but if you'd prefer to do it at the table, just slightly modify it to fit your needs (slice the breast meat piece by piece off the ones rather than in a chunk).
Good luck! And please, share any other carving tips you have below!
For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.
Put this on your mental list of "stuff to do with Thanksgiving leftovers." This bento, from sake-bento, has mashed potatoes, carrots, lettuce and a little lake of gravy in the top tier, and green bean casserole, a molded mound of stuffing (creator used an onigiri mold), turkey and cranberries on toothpicks. The cup contains apple juice with a few decorative floating cranberries.
When a friend of mine recently asked me to help throw her a baby shower, I had many 
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It's the day before Thanksgiving! We can't wait! Here, in one handy place, is a roundup of our 8 Best Thanksgiving Tips. 
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