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Improving Thanksgiving Dinner

9 years ago

One word:

Spicy Cranberry Sauce.

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Comments (22)

MikeUSMC
I second what OZZY2001 and willard3 said. I smoked a turkey a few years ago. I took it out of the freezer 2 days before Hurricane Irene hit the northeast. Lost power (electric oven) and didn't want it to go to waste. By far, the best, juiciest turkey I've ever had.(Disclaimer: I still haven't had a deep fried turkey) Been doing it annually for Thanksgiving ever since. Turkey sandwiches with chipotle mayo definitely put it over the top. Some spicy cranberry jelly or sauce would probably knock this out of the park.

Mike
MikeUSMC
I second what OZZY2001 and willard3 said. I smoked a turkey a few years ago. I took it out of the freezer 2 days before Hurricane Irene hit the northeast. Lost power (electric oven) and didn't want it to go to waste. By far, the best, juiciest turkey I've ever had.(Disclaimer: I still haven't had a deep fried turkey) Been doing it annually for Thanksgiving ever since. Turkey sandwiches with chipotle mayo definitely put it over the top. Some spicy cranberry jelly or sauce would probably knock this out of the park.

Mike
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Q
Comments (32)
Barb, Here's the Flan recipe---I translated it, so scroll down for the English version. It is really easy and delicious. My other favorite is Flan de Queso or Cream Cheese Flan. Flan de Calabaza Sencillo por: Melanie Lugo Ingredientes : 2 1/2 taza calabaza majada 1 lata de leche evaporada 1 lata de leche condensada 5 huevos 1 cdta. canela en polvo 1 cdta. vainilla 1/4 cdta. clavos de olor (opcional) 1 taza de azucar derretida (caramelo Procedimiento Precaliente horno a 350. Mezcle todos los ingredientes y coloque en un molde previamente acaramelado. Ponga el molde en BaÃ±o de Maria por 1 hora. Translation: Simple Pumpkin Flan 2 Â½ cups mashed pumpkin or squash 1 can evaporated milk 1 can sweetened condensed milk 5 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp ground cloves (optional) 1 c. granulated sugar for the carmel Pre-heat oven to 350. Mix all of the ingredients (I use a blender) and pour into baking dish/pan/mold that you previously put the carmel in. Put in the oven in a hot water bath and bake for 1 hour until knife inserted in middle comes out clean. Note: To carmelize sugar IÂve found IÂm less likely to burn it if I add 1TBS corn syrup and 1/4 c water. Then I let it cook over medium to med-high heat until it start to turn a light amber color. I donÂt have a custard dish, so I just use a round cake pan and put it in a 9" by 13" pan with hot water for the hot water bath. I have also found that the flan sets up better if I add 2 tsp of corn starch, or 1 TBS of flour to the batter. This is a very pumpkiny flan. You can reduce the pumpkin by Â½ c. if you want a milder pumpkin flavor.
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I guess Thanksgiving dinner is free this year!
Q
Comments (57)
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_9243bb74-ecfa-11e8-8f73-0f42fb5dada2.html "The Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank is filled these days with people volunteering their time and sorting food donated for the hungry. But what this 170,000-square foot facility on Choctaw Drive doesn't have as the holidays start is food. The situation has gotten bad enough that the charity, which serves an 11-parish area, is putting out public calls for extra help, for extra donations of food, and especially for money to purchase additional food. High-profile disasters, including hurricanes Florence and Michael, as well as the ongoing wildfires in California, have diverted the supply of donated food as well as drawn away cash donations that might ordinarily have gone to help hungry people locally at Thanksgiving and Christmas. “You would ordinarily see all of these shelves full,” said Mike Manning, pointing to two tall, long and nearly empty stretches of metal shelving at the rear of the facility. These shelves is where the the charity normally stores its dry, canned and staple foods. Manning, president and CEO of the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank, said instead he is flush with candy, a relic of the Halloween holiday, pointing to a big box of M&M bags. “We’ve got a lot of candy,” Manning said. “That’s not what we need.” About 30 volunteers, several of them employees of ExxonMobil, were on hand Monday sorting donated canned food. Many people brought their families. The empty shelves are not visible from their work area. Katie Skiles volunteered on Monday with her father Joe and brother, James, but she said she has worked there by herself since she first volunteered more than a year ago. “My parents made me come,” Katie said. “Now I love it.” A senior at Lee High in Baton Rouge, Katie, 17, said she was not aware of the food shortage. She said she might talk to the National Honor Society at her high school about doing a food drive. The warehouse currently has about 1 million pound of food in its inventory, about half of the normal inventory, Manning said. One million pounds of food is also roughly what the food bank distributes each month to its 100-plus member agencies, he said. And to top it all off, this is normally a time of peak inventory, when the food banks stock up in order to have sufficient supply for the early months of the year. “I’ve never see it this bad going into the holidays,” Manning said. Besides recent disasters and the resulting “donor fatigue,” another food supply factor is the shrinking donations over time from commercial grocers who carry less excess inventory than they used to, Manning said. To help restock, the food bank has asked local schools to do special food drives. What would help most, though, are cash donations, which people can donate online on the charity’s website, Manning said. “We are kind of held hostage by the national situation, unless we can get sufficient money to purchase food,” he said. It doesn’t necessarily take much money to help. Manning pointed to palettes full of canned vegetables without labels on them. These cans, when they have commercial labels, cost 70 to 90 cents a can at the store, but without the labels, they cost the food bank between 5 and 10 cents a can. Manning said he’s talking about having a more formal fund drive around New Years to raise money, but he’s been too busy to pull together anything more formal sooner. “We’re in firefighting mode right now,” he said. “We’re just asking for help.”
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Thanksgiving dinner done.
Q
Comments (4)
That's too bad about your daughters friends. But it was very kind of you to send them plates. I feel like I end up working every holiday because someone else always either takes the week for vacation or calls in sick and I'm stuck covering for them. This year i will miss both my mom's and my sister's thanksgiving dinners because I am working. I work 12 hour shifts, and despite their insistence that I can get by with just an hour or so of sleep to come and spend the day with them,I don't go. Every year SO brings me a plate of food from his mom on thanksgiving and Christmas, and he will bring it to me at work. I might stop by my sister's house on my way to work,but I may not get up in time. My mom lives 45 minutes away,and won't budge on the day she is having hers in order to accommodate some of my other siblings,who have school age kids. So I won't be attending hers. Every time I take my car to a shop or even the dealership to have something fixed,i leave with something else broken. That is why SO is in charge if all auto repairs now.
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Your favorite side dish for Thanksgiving dinner?
Q
Comments (35)
I wasn't going to make a turkey dinner this year but the thoughts of stuffing and other things made me order one today for delivery tomorrow. I'll make it this weekend when I'm off. I asked for the smallest one they had. I also got stuff to make turkey sandwiches later, stuffing, jellied cranberry sauce in a can (lol) and jarred gravy. I'll also make one of my small squash from the garden with brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon for a substitute for pumpkin pie/sweet potatoes. My daughter is leaving tomorrow for R.I. so it will just be me. I hope they bring a tiny turkey!
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MikeUSMC
I second what OZZY2001 and willard3 said. I smoked a turkey a few years ago. I took it out of the freezer 2 days before Hurricane Irene hit the northeast. Lost power (electric oven) and didn't want it to go to waste. By far, the best, juiciest turkey I've ever had.(Disclaimer: I still haven't had a deep fried turkey) Been doing it annually for Thanksgiving ever since. Turkey sandwiches with chipotle mayo definitely put it over the top. Some spicy cranberry jelly or sauce would probably knock this out of the park.

Mike

This post was edited by MikeUSMC on Fri, Nov 14, 14 at 7:34
DMForcier
Original Author
9 years ago
Aw heck. Someone already beat me to it .. by 5 years.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cranberry flavored habaneros
tomt226
9 years ago
How about a salsa using cranberry juice. Maybe with red Bhuts. And a few cranberries.
That would damn shore git rid of that stuff in turkey that puts you to sleep. Wake that mouth right up.
Call it "Pilgrim Punisher..."
judo_and_peppers
9 years ago
alcohol helps a lot too
woohooman San Diego CA zone 10a
9 years ago
Actually, the tryptophan in turkey is rendered almost to no effect when mixed with other foods. So, if you eat thanksgiving dinner with all the sides and such, it's most likely OVEREATING(and booze) that makes one feel sleepy, not the tryptophan. If all you eat is turkey alone, then yes... drowsiness would be the result of the turkey.

Simply a myth. Think about it --- when you have a turkey sandwich the next day, do you want to take a nap afterwards?

Kevin
tomt226
9 years ago
It's probably all the carbs from dressing, mashed 'taters, gravy, biscuits, et cetera...
DMForcier
Original Author
9 years ago
> "Think about it --- when you have a turkey sandwich the next day, do you want to take a nap afterwards?"

Yep.
uncleflip
9 years ago
I don't need the turkey sammich to want a nap. :)
kuvaszlvr
9 years ago
Well, I took the plunge last night, I made some spicy cranberry sauce, just as an experiment. I used a couple of Aji Limons mixed in, could have used a couple more, but it has a very mild heat and the Aji's mix well with the cranberries. Wish I'd remember to add some cinnamon and a few spices, but I forgot.. might do that this evening, although it won't be the same
Pam
ozzy2001
9 years ago
I'm thinking about making some jerked turkey. I tried the jerk chicken recipe that someone posted on the forums a couple months ago. It was really good.
judo_and_peppers
9 years ago
jerk turkey. I like the idea. I'm gonna have to try it.

maybe smoke it too. or at least smoke for an hour or so and then put in the oven so it doesn't take 2 days to cook.
seysonn
9 years ago
I ha a can of whole cranberry sauce. I used that as base and mixed with my pure hot sauce( no sugar, no sweetener, with vinegar) and made a nice pint of spicy cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner.
It turned out awesome.

seysonn
willardb3
9 years ago
Chipotle mayo on smoked turkey.
ozzy2001
9 years ago
I've smoked ours the last couple years. It's amazing! Put the turkey breast down in roasting tray. Make a tin foil tent ank smoke for about 1 1/2 hrs. Then open up flip and baste. Then it's another hour or so. Just look up herb & honey smoked turky on allrecipies.com. I'll look when I get home and copy link for you. It was easily the best turkey I've ever had.
I would reccomend putting the turkey on a rack in the pan so it doesn't stick to the pan.
judo_and_peppers
9 years ago
it's looking about 80% likely that I'm gonna do a jerk turkey this year.

I have a smoker, but I determined when I bought it with the business account that it was for use with peppers only, and I'm gonna stick to that. so it'll probably just be a turkey with my semi official jerk seasoning on it and cooked in the oven, but hey, close enough.
ozzy2001
9 years ago
Judo you don't even have to use a smoker. If you have a Weber or another charcoal grill just put it in there and put the wood hips straight on the coals. I couldn't even fit the turkey in my smoker.
DMForcier
Original Author
9 years ago
Turkey jerky? A perfect thing to sample on your web site as an example of what could be done with your upcoming (soon to be in preview) jerk sauce and a hair dryer.

Side effect: Use of commercial equipment perfectly justified.

Dennis

[ozzy: "wood hips"? Anything like rose hips?]
ozzy2001
9 years ago
Lol damn iPhone typing. Hips don't lie. I agree with DM too. The best part about owning a business and any equipment from it is being able to take advantage of it :). Now if you're abusing the usage that's a different story.
willardb3
9 years ago
Find a butcher who smokes meat for your turkey. We have a German butcher and he does a perfect job.

Many butchers have smoke houses.
Big Kahuna
9 years ago
Just stumbled upon this recipe.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cranberry Sauce with Chile

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