What’s Thanksgiving without some rolls to go with all the rest of the carb-laden goodness? These are a great addition to the holiday table, and also make wonderful country ham biscuits. If you’re going to fill them, you can just roll them out and cut them into rounds. But for serving them with a meal, we like to make what my grandmother called “pocketbooks”, dipping them in butter and then folding them over, as shown in the picture.

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Angel Biscuits

Even though there is yeast in this dough, it is also leavened with baking powder/soda and does not have to rise before baking The dough may also be stored in the refrigerator for several days before rolling out and shaping.

1 package dry yeast
5 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 t salt
3/4 cup shortening
2 cups buttermilk
melted butter, for dipping (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 F. Proof yeast by dissolving in 2 Tablespoons warm water. (If it doesn’t bubble a bit after a few minutes, your yeast is dead.)

Stir together dry ingredients. Cut in shortening. Stir yeast into buttermilk, add add to the cut together mixture.

Knead well. Turn out on a lightly floured board and roll out about 1/4″ thick. Cut with biscuit cutter and bake as biscuits. Or, dip in melted butter and fold over to make pocketbook rolls.

Bake 400 F for 15 minutes, until lightly golden.

Cranberry salad is another dish that we always have to have on our Thanksgiving table, and I encourage you to consider it for yours, too. It’s especially one of my mom’s favorites (and mine!). I love cranberries just about any way you can think to serve them, though this one is a little unusual since the cranberries are completely raw. It also has a whole chopped orange — and yes, that really does mean peel, seeds, and all! But there’s enough sugar in the jello, pineapple, and juice to nicely offset the bitter/tart from the orange and cranberries. This salad would probably have a nice retro look in one of those molded pans too, but we’ve always just made it in a pyrex dish instead.

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Cranberry Salad

Serves a crowd, at least 8-10

2 small packages cherry (if you want it sweeter) or cranberry Jello
1 cup hot water
1 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup pineapple syrup of juice
1 heaping cup of cranberries
1 whole orange
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup drained, crushed pineapple
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

1. Dissolve Jello in water. Add sugar, lemon juice, and pineapple syrup and put in refrigerator to thicken somewhat, but not long enough to congeal.
2. Chop cranberries and whole orange in food processor into very small pieces (until ground).
3. Mix all other ingredients together well and stir into thickened Jello.
4. Spread into a 13″ x 9″ or 11″ x 13″ glass dish and chill until firm.

I don’t know about you, but now that it’s November, I’ve got Thanksgiving on my mind. I usually don’t plan ahead enough to actually share my Thanksgiving recipes this early, but I have a few Thanksgiving recipes from last year that I never got around to sharing, so in a way, I’m so late that I’m actually ahead! Didn’t get a great picture of the corn pudding last year (and it’s not the most photogenic of dishes anyway), but it’s that dish front and center in this post of my plate from last year.

Corn pudding is always one of my very favorite parts of Thanksgiving. It is super easy, but for some reason we never fix it except at Thanksgiving, which makes it extra special. Last year, I doubled the original recipe for only the six of us, and there still wasn’t very much leftover, so it’s always a hit.

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I found blueberries for $3/pound last week, so I actually felt like I could buy enough to do something more than sprinkle a few in my oatmeal.  Cherries were cheap too, so I modified my grandmother Meme’s blueberry muffin recipe to include some cherries too. I was hoping they’d look kind of belatedly patriotic, but actually the cherries turn darker and the blueberries turn purple when cooked, so you really can’t see the difference.

Isn’t it wonderful what happens to blueberries when they bake?  I love the way they sort of explode and seem even juicier than when you pop them in your mouth raw.  I didn’t have any lemons so I added some lemon extract, otherwise I would’ve just used lemon zest.  I like the almond flavor with the cherries and blueberries, but you could also just use vanilla.
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I know this is a bit redundant with the Daring Bakers post earlier this week, but I did end up making a quiche with the leftover filling, and it turned out so well, I wanted to share.  Also, I realized I’ve never shared my quiche recipe with you, which comes from Matt’s grandmother by way of my mother-in-law.  She always filled it with bacon and swiss cheese, but here I used the mushroom barley filling from the strudel instead of the bacon (though I added a couple slices of bacon, too).  Also, I usually use cream but I didn’t have any so I substituted the buttermilk I had on hand from making a strawberry buttermilk cake.  I’ll be repeating that substitution — it added a nice rich tang.

I’ll admit that the mushroom barley filling made the quiche just a tad watery, but the flavor was so good we really didn’t mind.  Matt said “I didn’t even notice I hadn’t put hot sauce on it until I was more than halfway through a slice,” and usually even his favorite quiche, from his grandmother, is drowning in it before he even starts eating.  So I considered that high praise indeed!

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