Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Thanksgiving Cooking Excitment

We are fortunate that we're going to have guests for this Thanksgiving.  With our family all over the world, that is never a given on a holiday.  And Thanksgiving was always a major get together for our extended family while my Mother was living.

Thanksgiving has a tendency to squelch creative cooking because there is such a desire by folks for what they grew up with.  This year I think I'm striking a nice balance between the traditional and some twists on the traditional.

I'm using a salt-curing technique for the turkey which I've done the last couple of years that is a lot easier than brining.  I'm trying a new dressing that is from an Italian tradition using Italian sausage.  I found a sweet potato/butternut squash recipe that has all the ingredients of traditional candied sweet potatoes but is in fact a Sephardic Jewish recipe from Spain (an homage to our recent trip).  And I made two cranberry sauces, the traditional, and a version I made up that is more hot (spicy), sweet and sour.

Should be a great dinner.   I've got the cooking spread out over the three days so I'm hoping to be nice a rested and enjoy our guests.

4 comments:

Renee Michelle Goertzen said...

Sounds great! A nice mix of traditional and innovative.

We're having tacos for Thanksgiving, but that's because we'll be camping.

Xani said...

Enjoy! Sounds like a delicious menu! We're letting the Four Seasons cook our Thanksgiving dinner this year but I did cook up a whole "Faux-Giving" spread a couple weeks ago (b/c I was bummed to miss out on Thanksgiving cooking!). I used the ATK dry-brining method, very successful. Happy Thanksgiving to you!

alexis said...

Oh yes, happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Sounds delicious, I can't wait for pictures.

terri said...

Sounds like a delicious mix of traditional and new tastes! I'm sure it was a big success!