Fabulous Thanksgiving Dishes

Cafe Society
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I was inspired to start this thread by my dad’s girlfriend’s phenomenal wild rice dish that she served yesterday. I wondered if anyone else had any holiday dishes that were just wonderful, or if we were the lucky ones. :slight_smile:

I’ve always known that I like wild rice, but I’m not sure I’ve ever had anything quite like this. It was very dense and flavorful, made nicely nutty by the addition of toasted slivered almonds. She’s going to email me the recipe, and I’d be glad to post it here if anyone’s interested. She says it takes a long time to cook (like almost two hours), but I will certainly be sacrificing the time for it. For now, I got to bring home about 2 cups of leftovers, and since you can’t eat more than about 1/2 cup at a time, it should last a while. Maybe.

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I was at an office party once and one of the guys brought this terrific dessert made of layers of buttercream. He got the recipe from a magazine and it was called Celebration Cake. I can’t seem to find the exact recipe online anywhere but this is very close to what I remember.

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Oooh, ooh! I want the wild rice recipe!

I kludged together this recipe, which was really, really tasty for how simple it was. I had been planning to make a tropical fruit salad, but was stymied by the poor selection of fresh fruit in the supermarket this weekend, so I punted and went to frozen and canned fruit, and I was quite pleased with the result. It was cool and light and refreshing (a nice contrast to the heavy holiday fare) and very intensely fruity.

Frozen Fruit Salad

1 4-serving box of strawberry gelatin.
1 11-oz can of mandarin oranges.
1 10-oz (?) bag of unsweetened frozen mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries), NOT thawed.
1 banana, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and cut into squarish chunks.

Dissolve the gelatin powder in 1/2 cup hot water.

Drain the oranges and reserve the liquid. In a 9x9 inch casserole dish, gently toss the fruit (including the drained oranges).

Add enough water to the orange liquid to make 1 cup, and combine add to the gelatin. Mix the gelatin into the fruit.

Freeze for about 3 hours.

Use a wooden spoon to stir the mixture gently, being careful not to break the pieces of fruit -OR- if you prefer to make it a day (or more) in advance, keep it frozen until approximately 1 hour before serving, then thaw it at room temperature before stirring.

You can probably use whatever fruit you want to, canned or fresh, but it’s probably wise to avoid stuff like kiwi fruit and fresh pineapple that prevents Jello from gelling. You also want to avoid huge pieces, because they won’t unthaw enough. The strawberries in my berry mix were almost too big. The gelatin / orange syrup mixture was plenty sweet to offset the tartness of the unsweetened berries. In the future, I think I’ll add another banana or some other light-colored fruit, because the banana and oranges were a nice visual contrast to the rich dark color of the berries. Since it’s frozen, the bananas stay bright white and didn’t brown at all! I bet it’d be good with some chopped fresh or frozen cranberries and some walnuts, for a more Thanksgivingy flavor.

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I usually do creamed spinach (recipe stolen from Gulliver’s Prime Rib in Costa Mesa, CA). Basically, brown about half a package of bacon; saute an onion, make a cream sauce with the reserved bacon fat, flour and milk.Spices include MSG, white pepper and fresh nutmeg. Add 3 packages frozen spinach that’s been thawed and drained. Mix well; top with Parmiganio and bake until heated through and cheese is bubbly. This is also good cold on sandwiches with leftover turkey or prime rib.

Sweet-sour onions have had a place at the table for some time. To one package frozen peeled pearl onions; add a couple tablespoons butter, saute, add a tablesppon of sugar and 2 tablespoons of good balsamic vinegar. Simmer slowly until the glaze is dark, bubbly and caramelized.

I also go caramelized brussel sprouts with candied pecans – halve the sprouts and put in a baking dish with butter and sugar, bake in a moderate oven until the edges turn brown but the sprout is still green. (This can also be done on the stovetop in a nonstick pan). While those are cooking, combine pecans, butter, sugar, a shake of cayenne pepper and a dash of salt in a small pan. Cook until the sugar is brown, being careful not to burn. Reserve, cool, and then when the sprouts are done, chop/bash into small pieces and scatter on top.

Another good appetizer is deviled pecans, where you combine shelled pecans, brown sugar, butter, Tabasco and fresh rosemary, then bung it into an oven until it smells good. The nuts turn out nicely toasty, sweet, hot, and savory.