Better late than never, right?
I hadn’t cooked Thanksgiving dinner since 2001 and decided that this year, my last year in New York, Thanksgiving was going to be perfect. I had two guests coming into town, my friend Lacey was coming over for dinner and my roommate would be around. That Monday, I went to Whole Foods and bought the smallest organic, free-range turkey I could find (11 pounds), Brussels sprouts, red potatoes and ridiculous amounts of butter.
Tuesday, my roommate and I got into a fight. Wednesday, my friends called to say they had to cancel their trip due to a family illness. Lacey is a vegetarian.
I asked around to see if anyone needed a place to go, but everyone already had plans. Lacey and I, being Thanksgiving orphans, were able to attend another friend’s dinner. But I still had an 11-pound turkey in the fridge.
This gave me an idea: The Day After Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Dinner. I had a turkey to get rid of, people would want an excuse to leave their families early and, damnit, I still wanted to host the perfect Thanksgiving. I sent out an email to a few friends I figured would be around and… forgot to brine the turkey.
In the mean time, I asked the friend who was taking Lacey and me in what she would like us to bring. But she didn’t need a turkey or Brussels sprouts or even mashed potatoes. No, she needed stuffing.
In my family, stuffing came from a box, Stove Top to be exact. I would fill my plate with it as a kid, with a little turkey and cranberry sauce on the side. But, being the casserole queen and all, showing up with a fake casserole would be a little, um, bad? So, I came up with this recipe, headed over to Lacey’s with the ingredients on Thursday morning and crossed my fingers it would turn out okay. What follows is the recipe for The Best Vegetarian Stuffing Ever:
2 sticks salted butter
3 tablespoons fresh, chopped sage
1 large, white onion, chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
3 stalks celery finely chopped
2 apples, chopped (with skins)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 can vegetable broth
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 loaf day-old french bread
1/2 cup Craisins or dried cranberries
salt
pepper
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Melt butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. When the butter is melted add one tablespoon of the sage, the onion, celery and the carrot. When the onions become translucent, add the garlic, apples and salt and pepper generously, very generously. After the apples have cooked for about 2 minutes, pour the vegetable broth into the pan, season with the cayenne and more salt and pepper as needed, and let the mixture saute for 1 to 2 more minutes.
Tear the bread into approximately 1/2-inch squares and place in a 2-3/4-quart casserole dish. Add the cranberries and sage. Remove the mixture from the stove and pour it over the bread. Mix well and bake uncovered at 350ºF for about 45 minutes to an hour. For best results, stir at least once.
If I do say so myself, the stuffing was ridonculous. We finished off a Pyrex full and then most of another. I made it again for my Day After Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Dinner, along with the turkey I forgot to brine and the Brussels sprouts I forgot I had until the very last minute.
Here’s how I prepared the turkey, sans brine:
Rub the turkey with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. After you violate it by removing the neck, heart and gizzards, rub the inside of the bird with salt and pepper, then stuff it with one stick of butter and one lemon cut in half along with a few sprigs of rosemary.
In a medium mixing bowl, make a glaze with 1 cup honey, 1 stick of butter (you may need to microwave the honey and the butter) 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Pour the glaze over the top of the turkey and bake, uncovered at 325ºF, basting every half hour until the turkey is done. After the first hour, during the basting process cover the turkey with sliced garlic and fresh rosemary.
Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes:
6-7 red potatoes
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 stick salted butter
salt
pepper
Boil the potatoes in large pot of salted water until a fork goes through them. Drain and set aside. When the potatoes are cool quarter them (or cut them smaller if you’d like). I like to leave the skins on.
In the bottom of the same large pot, melt a stick of butter. When the butter is melted, add generous amounts of salt and pepper, and then the potatoes. Lightly mash the potatoes with a masher or spoon (or the bottom of a bottle of wine). Add the sour cream, heavy cream and more salt and pepper as desired. Continue to mash and stir the potatoes. Then eat them. Or wait for gravy.
Delightfully, Surprisingly Tangy Gravy:
1 cup run-off turkey glaze (see above), strained
4 tablespoons flour
2 1/2 cups whole milk
pepper
About ten minutes before dinner, in a medium sauce pan over medium heat whisk the turkey glaze with the sifted flour. Stir vigorously for about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the milk, continue to stir and reduce the heat to low. Add pepper as desired and stir occasionally. If the gravy is too thick, add more milk.
Cranberry Sauce:
Water
Sugar
Cranberries
Pinch of All Spice
Optional: Red Wine
In a medium sauce pan over medium heat mix 2 cups of water with as much sugar as you’d like, about 3 cups of fresh cranberries and a pinch of All Spice. If you, like me, like to drink when you cook and think that your cranberry sauce will be improved with some red wine straight out of your glass, pour it in.
Stir occasionally until the sauce reaches your desired consistency.
Brussels sprouts:
Slice them in half drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Toss.
Bake, uncovered at 350ºF for approximately 45 minutes.
The Day After Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Dinner turned out to be more casual than my Thanksgiving might have been. When the first guest arrived, on time, I answered the door in my robe, sans make up. More friends began to trickle in, I got dressed, put on some mascara and a few hours later we’d gone through a few pounds of that turkey and more than a few bottles of wine. We jammed with the musical instruments I had around the house (guitar, ukulele, tambourine) and people who arrived strangers left friends.
It was the perfect Thanksgiving dinner after all. Unfortunately, my little sister dropped my digital camera on Thanksgiving so I wasn’t able to document any of this.
Tags: brining a turkey, casserole crazy, cheap comfort food recipes, comfort food recipes, cooking a turkey without brining it, easy cranberry sauce, easy stuffing, easy thanksgiving dinner, emily farris, glaze for a turkey, good stuffing recipe, gravy recipes, how to make cranberry sauce, how to make easy stuffing, how to make stuffing, how to make stuffing from scratch, how to make vegetarian stuffing, how to roast a turkey, how to roast a turkey without brine, how to roast an 11-pound turkey, recession food, recession recipes, recipe for dressing, recipe for stuffing, recipe for thankgiving stuffing, recipes, sour cream mashed potato recipe, stuffing, thankgiving dinner, vegetarian stuffing recipe
2 sticks of butter in dressing? Wow. That’s a bit much. You could easily halve that. Have you ever tried adding a bit of egg to the casserole, assuming no one is vegan? It gives you some of that moisture you’re after, without all the fat of butter.