A stressed out hostess makes for a lousy shindig, and let’s face it, orchestrating a Thanksgiving dinner is no therapy. Our national feast typically features multiple different dishes that all require different cooking times and temperatures. If you’re making Thanksgiving dinner this year, relax, and remember there are plenty of dishes you can prepare ahead of time. Planning will help eliminate the stress of holiday cooking. Plan out what days you’ll make what dishes in advance, and then make a “day-of” map so everything gets it’s proper time in the oven and arrives warm to the table. This list should help you spread out your workload and make the process a whole lot easier. Pie dough or Fruit Pies 1 day to 4 weeks in advance Whole fruit pies can go in the freezer up to a month before Thanksgiving. Wrap your pie in several layers of plastic wrap to minimize air exposure, then wrap in…
15 side dishes using cranberries that aren’t sauce
Some people don’t go crazy for cranberry sauce — I personally can’t understand it. But it got me wondering of other ways can we enjoy cranberries as a side dish beyond just sauce this season. They’re cheap, readily available and really healthy, so it would be a shame for anyone to overlook them completely. I got to work on Pinterest and put together this craveable list of all things cranberry. Roasted Brussels Sprouts with cranberry and pecans Brussels Sprouts are having a moment. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/581245895630017058/ Cranberry, sweet potato casserole This colorful dish will get you bonus points for presentation. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/329536897718651028/ Cranberry quinoa salad A newer comer to Thanksgiving, quinoa is an excellent addition to any feast especially with added cranberries. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/95349717090017439/ Cranberry Ambrosia salad Something on the sweeter side. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/242631498657505133/ Cranberry, walnut pinwheels It’s the season to sneak cranberries into your desserts, dinner, breakfasts and appetizers. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/312578030381675135/ Cranberry fluff Another sweet treat using one of the…
How your favorite chefs make mashed potatoes
If there’s one side dish we can all agree deserves a spot on the Thanksgiving table it’s mashed potatoes, but how exactly those spuds are smashed will vary in every home across the country. Not all cooking methods are created equal, so we consulted our favorite celebrity chefs for tips on how to take this traditional holiday dish to the next level. Ina Garten The Barefoot Contessa swears that Yukon Gold potatoes, with their slightly yellow color, are the best variety for mashed tots. She runs them through a food mill, then adds rich butter and sour cream for this good old-fashioned comfort food. https://youtu.be/pTJMM4yusMg ALTON BROWN Alton and Ina must share recipes. This recipe is remarkably close to Ina’s, but it’s probably more of a professional consensus that this is, in fact, one of the best ways to make mashed potatoes. Alton also swears by running Yukon Gold potatoes through a food mill then adding butter, heavy cream,…
Appreciate the onion during winter
Winter cooking can be challenging. But with less to work with, you can focus on what’s available to you. That’s when true creativity comes. You think beyond your usual dinner menus and get inspired by ingredients that might otherwise get overlooked. At mealtime, it could mean paying attention to one of the most common yet underestimated ingredients of everyday cooking: onions. I mean plain, round storage onions, the ones we rarely think about—until there’s a crisis because they’re not in the house. Elizabeth Robins Pennell, an American who wrote about food in 19th- and early-20th-century London, spared no drama when praising the onion’s essential nature. “Banish it from the kitchen, and all pleasure of eating flies with it,” she wrote in an essay called “The Incomparable Onion.” “Its presence lends color and enchantment to the most modest dish; its absence reduces the rarest dainty to hopeless insipidity, and the diner to despair.” Not…