As we’re all starting to plan our Thanksgiving meals, I wanted to finally post a summary of what we served last year and what we liked about it, as well as some of our ideas for this year.  So, I have a list before of everything we made last year, including a couple ideas for re-mixing leftovers, and some of the things on my list to try for this year.  I’d love to hear your ideas, too.  What’s your favorite part of Thanksgiving?  What new things are you thinking about trying this year?  What traditions are always a part of your Thanksgiving meal?

Our 2009 Thanksgiving Menu:

• Lunch the day before: Butternut Squash Soup
• Thanksgiving breakfast: Pumpkin Brioche Cinnamon Rolls from Wild Yeast

The main event:

• Brined Turkey from Mugnaini
• Dressing from Pioneer Woman: Yes, this dressing is kind of a lot of trouble since it uses 2 kinds of bread and you have to make the cornbread. But you can do a lot of it ahead, and it was truly incredible. I don’t think I’m ever making a different recipe for dressing again.
• Cranberries two ways: Cranberry Sauce and Cranberry Salad
• Brussels Sprouts with Shallots and Wild Mushrooms from Gourmet: sort of an updated take on green bean casserole. We modified it to include pancetta, as in our favorite recipe for Brussels sprouts. That recipe is also a great substitute for something a bit lower maintenance.
• Twice-baked potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes with Coconut and Hazelnuts, originally from 101 Cookbooks
• Corn Pudding
• Angel Biscuits

Dessert:

• Pumpkin Pie: we made my friend Stirling’s Sugar and Spice Pumpkin Pie
• Rum Raisin Apple Pie from Gourmet, adapted to replace the top crust with a crumble topping
• Maple Nut Pie from Gourmet: a really nice update for pecan pie. I expect this will be making a reappearance on our Thanksgiving table at some point.

Leftovers remix:

• Breakfast Pancakes with Sweet Potatoes
• Turkey mole enchiladas with this sauce from Serious Eats: easy to make the sauce ahead, and extra freezes well

Other Ideas:

This year, it’s going to be just four of for Thanksgiving, so it’ll be a bit smaller than our gathering last year.  Although we’ll miss having a big crowd, and seeing my in-laws (and especially our new nephew who we won’t get to meet until Christmas!), the advantage of the smaller group is that there’s a little less pressure and for some reason we feel a little more interested in playing with tradition.  Though I unfortunately haven’t been able to convince everyone to go with the Serious Eats Buffalo Fried Turkey (yet!), I do think we’ll end up trying some new things this year. Here are some ideas, some (but not all) especially geared toward smaller gatherings:

For the turkey:
• Mark Bittman’s Braised Turkey: I’ve seen great reviews for this. Although it involves cutting up the turkey so that you don’t get the Norman Rockwell photo, it sounds like a great solution to get both dark and light meat appropriately cooked. Plus, it involves both sausage and pancetta!
• Tuscan Roast Turkey Breast from Martha Stewart: We did a variation on this rolled-up turkey breast the last time we had a 4 person Thanksgiving. The disadvantage: no dark meat.
• Pimenton Brined Turkey: Add some smoky flavor to your turkey without the smoker!

Side Dishes:

• Butternut Squash, Lentil, and Goat Cheese Salad: Not sure if this will make it to our Thanksgiving table or not, but I definitely think we will try it at some point this fall. Looks like a great possible main course for a vegetarian Thanksgiving, too.
• Green Beans with Meyer Lemon Breadcrumbs, from Sunset: A fresh alternative to green bean casserole
• Sweet Potato Souffle with a Twist: Homemade marshmallows and a bacon garnish! Not sure I’m going to convince the rest of my family on this one either, and we usually skip the sweet potato/marshmallow combination. But just look at that beautiful photo!

That’s all I’ve got so far, so clearly I need some help on the dessert front! We will probably make a pie or two, either pumpkin or pecan, or maybe I will make my grandmother Meme’s chess tarts so I can finally share that recipe with you. And as always, we’d love to hear your ideas, too. What’s on your Thanksgiving table?

Matt’s been out of town for the past week (but is coming home tonight! yay!), so I’ve been having to feed just myself.  The vast majority of the time, we eat dinner together, and even when we don’t, it’s usually because there’s something going on, so I don’t often cook for just myself.  But, I didn’t want to eat takeout or peanut butter and jelly for a whole week, so I’ve been practicing cooking in smaller portions.

Cooking for one can be a challenge: most recipes come for four or even six, cans of things are usually too big for one person, and many ingredients are hard to buy in smaller quantities.  And, cooking can just seem like a lot of trouble when there’s only one mouth to feed.  Many of these are problems for cooking for two people also, but when there’s two of us, cooking a recipe for four isn’t so bad, since I like to eat leftovers for lunch anyway.  However, I didn’t want to have to eat the same thing for three or four days, so my usual leftovers strategy wasn’t going to work for just me.

Despite these challenges, I actually had some fun cooking for only myself, and found that it had some upsides: you can eat the things your usual dining partner doesn’t care too much for, you can be a bit more creative and risky with trying combinations that might not work out, and if you end up eating a little less healthy or balanced a meal, there’s no one to judge you or give you funny looks.

I’m the first to admit that I don’t have a lot of experience in this department, but when I said I was actually enjoying cooking for myself, my cousin Bethany was interested to hear what I was making, so I thought others might be, too.  So here’s the “tips” that worked for me (at least this week) and a list of what I made this week with links to the recipes, some my own, and some from others.

• Use fresh or frozen ingredients, not canned.  I don’t know about you, but whenever I use half a can of something, I dutifully pour the leftovers into a container, stick it in the fridge, and throw it away 2 weeks later.  Fresh ingredients can be more expensive, but you can often buy smaller quantities of fresh produce and use it up a little at a time.  Similarly, it’s easy to use up part of a bag of frozen vegetables and keep the rest for later.
• Eggs!  They are a great protein source that comes in a perfect one-person sized portion.  I love a poached egg on top of just about any vegetable, but you can also make omelettes or fritattas, or add to  pasta.  It’s a great way to doctor up leftover vegetables from a previous night, too.
• Pasta – another great way to make something new out of leftovers is to toss with some freshly cooked pasta
• Frozen pastry.  I didn’t actually do this because I ran out of nights.  But thawing some frozen pie crust or puff pastry (NOT filo dough) and then using that to make a simple hand pie with something simple for filling seems like it’d be another way to make any leftover veggies or meat feel new.  You could also make a bunch of these and freeze them individually wrapped, like your own homemade frozen dinners.
• When all else fails, just stare at the pantry/fridge/freezer until you think of something, and even if it sounds a little weird, try it!  If it’s bad, there’s always pizza, and it probably won’t be as bad as that anyway!

And a list of what I ate this week, with links, all ready to eat in less than half an hour:

• Garlic Soup (adapted from Julie Powell)
• Pasta Carbonara (adapted from Marcella Hazan)
• Cheddar Chicken Fingers (from Gourmet) with Sweet Potato Fries
• Asparagus with Poached Eggs (recipe below)
• Pork Chops Saltimbocca – this was a treat for Saturday night, so it’s a little more expensive, but just as easy as the others (recipe coming soon)

Asparagus with Poached Eggs

I love the way poached eggs make their own sauce for whatever they’re topping. This is great adapted with any vegetable, or even something like pasta or rice. Crusty bread for soaking up the egg is a nice accompaniment. Without an egg poacher, you get a spread out, frilly egg white, but I actually think it’s kind of pretty that way, and as it happens, I’m the only one who’s gonna see it!

about 1/3 to 1/2 of a bunch of asparagus
1 clove of garlic, minced, or 1/2 t garlic powder
balsamic vinegar (optional)
olive oil
1 egg
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (optional)

Preheat oven (or toaster oven) to 400 F. Toss asparagus with garlic, a generous glug each of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and salt and pepper. Roast on a sheet pan in the oven until the edges are browned and caramelized, about 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, place about 2″ of water in a small saucepan, salt, and add a tablespoon or so of plain white vinegar. (The vinegar is supposed to help the egg set or something, but it’s not really essential.) Bring the water so it’s just barely simmering, so you see a few tiny bubbles floating up but it’s definitely not boiling. Crack an egg into a shallow bowl (makes it easier to slip the egg into the water). When the asparagus is almost done, gently slip the egg into the simmering water. Cook for just a few minute, just until the white sets but so the yolk is still nice and runny. While the egg cooks, plate the asparagus, and then remove the egg from the water with a slotted spoon and place on top of the asparagus. Parmesan cheese is a nice topping, but not essential.

Another variation, as pictured: Heat some olive oil (a couple tablespoons maybe) with a couple shakes of red pepper flakes, and some other herbs if you want.  Take off the heat and just let sit so the pepper infuses the oil, and then use to top the egg.  The spiciness is nice with the richness of the yolk.  Any extra infused oil will keep for a while.

For Christmas last year, my parents gave me a “gift certificate” to go shopping with my mom for something for the kitchen.  Although I used some of it a couple months ago (to get those low bowls in the picture, come to think of it) we hadn’t found time for me to use the rest of it, mostly because I had been indecisive about what I wanted to get.  Last week I was told that my “gift certificate” would expire after six months, so I needed to get to it!  We went to Williams Sonoma one night last week and I decided to buy this beautiful pasta maker.  Isn’t it a beauty?  I love that it’s bright red and shiny!

I was eager to put this baby to work, so I decided to make ravioli for some friends we were having over Saturday night.  (I’m in a little bit of trouble for breaking it in without letting Mom help, but I was just getting the kinks worked out.)  My only previous experience with making pasta was for the Daring Bakers lasagne a couple months back.  In that case, while it turned out very tasty, it was really a pain to roll out by hand (tearing, etc.) and I could never get it anywhere close to as thin as I wanted.This time, I used a recipe for egg pasta adapted from How to Cook Everything.  I don’t know whether it was the pasta recipe or having the pasta maker to roll it out, but it went so much more smoothly.  We only had one piece that tore to any significant extent, and I found the dough surprisingly easy to work with.  It’s still nice to have an extra pair of hands as the pasta does get pretty long when you’re rolling it on the thinnest setting, but the dough is actually easy enough it was actually ok even with one person.  As long as the machine and the dough were both floured pretty well, it hardly stuck to itself at all!

If you haven’t worked with a pasta maker before, you basically start with a small rectangle of dough and the rollers on the pasta machine at their widest setting.  It then has settings so you can move the rollers closer and closer together a little bit at a time (mine has 6 settings), until you end up with a delicate, papery thin pasta.  In fact, I found the dough to be maybe a bit too thin for ravioli — next time I think I might stop at the second to last setting instead of the last one.  After you’re done rolling you can either shape or cut the pasta by hand, or some pasta makers have attachments for cutting it into noodles (like the spaghetti in the picture that I made from the pasta scraps) or even for making and filling ravioli.

I love the pasta machine I got, which is made by an Italian company called Imperia, because everything just fits together so nicely, and it seems to work really well.  There’s even a place to store the handle inside when it’s put away, so it’s actually pretty compact, too.  And the best part?  You don’t even have to wash it!  Using water on the pasta maker can cause it to gunk up and then rust from the flour, which you’d never be able to completely clean out, so all you do is brush it off with a pastry brush after you’re done.  Now that’s my kind of kitchen equipment!

I don’t remember where I first heard of it (though I think it might have been Bittman’s blog, Bitten), but frying sage is an amazing culinary experience to me.  You take some leaves that taste ok on their own, and some butter that tastes ok pretty darn good on its own, and when you combine the two, you get something that is much more than the sum of its parts.  Not only does the sage becomes deliciously crispy, but the “furriness” of the leaves seems to sort of soak up the butter, so you get something rich and delicate and deeply flavorful, all at the same time.  I just love it, and I wanted to base my ravioli around that.  It’s also based somewhat on a dish from La Strada in Palo Alto.

I flavored the sausage filling for the ravioli with sage as well, and then, after frying the sage, I made a brown butter sauce, and also sprinkled in some pancetta.  While this sounds like a lot of fuss from making the ravioli, it actually didn’t take that long, and you can always make the ravioli ahead so it doesn’t take so long in one go.  Or, you could serve it inside out, and just toss any kind of noodles with the brown butter and sausage.  And of course, you can buy some pretty good pre-made ravioli, and if you do that, the brown butter sauce takes all of 5 minutes to come together, so that would definitely be a simple way to go.  Any way you try it, don’t leave off the fried sage — that’s the best part!

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Sausage Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter

Pasta recipe adapted from  How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
Inspired by La Strada
Serves 4

For the pasta:
2 c all purpose flour
1 t salt
2 whole eggs
3 egg yolks

For the filling:
3/4 lb Italian sausage, bulk or with casings removed
1 large shallot, chopped
2 T chopped sage
grating of nutmeg (optional)
1/2 c Parmigiano, grated
1 beaten egg

For the sauce:
2 oz pancetta
about a dozen fresh sage leaves
6 T butter

First make the pasta dough: combine the flour and salt in a food processor. Add the eggs and yolks and process until it begins to come together into a ball. Now look at the dough: if it’s grainy, add some water a few drops at a time. (This is what I did, and I think I ended up adding a couple teaspoons of water before the dough would finally come together completely.) If it’s sticking to the food processor, add a little bit of flour. Once it seems to be about the right amounts of flour and water, remove from the food processor and knead by hand just a little bit. (You can also do all of the kneading and combining by hand instead of using the food processor. In that case, make a well in the flour and mix in the eggs with a fork until combined, and then add water/flour as needed and knead.) When you knead it, you want to be able to stretch it a little bit before it breaks (but mine really didn’t stretch very much before breaking off, and it turned out fine). Cover the dough and let it rest at room temperature at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling: cook the bulk Italian sausage over medium high heat, crumbling as it cooks. When its most of the way cooked, add the chopped shallot and continue to cook. When the sausage and shallot are nicely browned, drain off any excess fat. Toss in the sage, a small grating of fresh nutmeg, and the parmigiano. Taste and adjust the seasoning (it may need a little salt). Let it cool just a bit and stir in the beaten egg. (You just want it cool enough that the egg won’t scramble.) Set aside.

Now, roll out the pasta. Cut off about a third of the dough. On a lightly floured surface, shape it into a rectangle about the width of the pasta maker. Flour the pasta maker. Roll it through on the widest setting, then continue to roll it through on incrementally higher settings. I went all the way to the highest (thinnest) setting. This makes for a delicious, delicate pasta, but some of it kind of fell apart when I boiled it/tossed it with the sauce, so you might want to go with one setting short of the highest one. Flour the rolled pasta and cover it with plastic. Repeat with the other two thirds of pasta dough.

Cut the dough into rectangles that are the width of the pasta maker and a foot or so long. Working with one sheet a time, drop teaspoons of the filling onto the dough, about an inch apart, making a row along one side of the pasta sheet. Wet the dough a bit with a finger and then fold it over and seal it. Use a pastry cutter or knife to cut into individual ravioli. The ravioli can be refrigerated in a single layer on a floured cookie sheet for up to a day, or can be frozen.

For the sauce: first brown the chopped pancetta until it’s just barely crispy. Set aside. Put on a pot of salted water to boil. When it’s close to boiling, melt a couple tablespoons of butter over medium heat in a large saute pan. When it’s hot, add the sage and fry for a couple minutes on each side. Remove with a slotted spoon. Add the rest of the butter and cook over medium to medium low heat until it’s browned and smells nutty (like making caramel, your nose is a better indicator than your eyes). Keep the sauce barely warm, and add the ravioli to the boiling water. They should only take about 3 minutes to cook. When the ravioli are done, gently toss them and the pancetta with the browned butter sauce. Serve immediately, garnished with the fried sage.