Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Truth be told, I like all holidays. Seeing as I love to eat, however, and that’s the primary activity associated with Thanksgiving, it is on the top of the list. I also love watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

As far as the food, I love all the traditional favorites, of course, the star of the show, the turkey, the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, stuffing, cranberry sauce and more. I often make green pea salad as well even though I’m really the only one who eats it and macaroni and cheese, too. And then there’s the pumpkin pie!

While I’m not usually a big fan of leftovers, Thanksgiving is one of the exceptions. I will eat the Thanksgiving leftovers until they are all gone and then I cry for more.

I typically just reheat and eat the leftovers exactly like they were served the first time around, but

many people find creative ways to recycle the Thanksgiving leftovers.
Turkey salad, turkey sandwiches and turkey pot pie are common revamps for the leftover turkey meat. Last year I also used the bones to make some homemade turkey stock.

My friend LeDon makes a special sandwich she calls The Ultimate Leftover Gobbler Sandwich.
LeDon says use slices of turkey topped with bacon, swiss or provolone, lettuce and tomato on a whole grain bread with cranberry mayo (3 tbsp. mayonnaise,1 tbsp. cranberry sauce, a squeeze of lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper) and it will make the post Thanksgiving blues disappear.

My sorority sister Bee told me about a very unique way to use the Thanksgiving leftovers that her husband created.

“Brian makes Thanksgiving pancakes — he takes all the leftovers and smushes them together and fries them up like pancakes. Then we invite all our friends over to eat them. It’s an annual weekend tradition!” Bee said.

At first I couldn’t quite imagine what that would be like, but the more I thought about it, it sounds pretty amazing. Potato cakes made from leftover mashed potatoes is a favorite dish of mine, so why not make extraordinary potato cakes using some turkey and stuffing mixed up in the potato mixture and then fried. Bee said to use the left over gravy and cranberry sauce as the “syrup” for these Thanksgiving pancakes.

If you are really wanting to spice things and try adding a different flavor to your turkey day remains, my sister Amanda, who hails from New Mexico, recommends Green Chili Turkey Enchiladas. In New Mexico green and red chilies are common ingredients in cooking. I’m not sure that here in North Carolina we can get our hands on the same type of green chilies, but using the canned green chilies might work. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Green Chili Turkey Enchilada Casserole (recipe adapted from food.com)
Ingredients:
• 1 lb shredded cooked boneless turkey meat
• 1 can diced green chilies
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 2 soup cans of milk (or water)
• salt
• garlic
• 2 dozen corn tortillas
• 2 cups shredded cheese (colby, munster, jack or mixture)

Directions:
Combined all ingredients except turkey, tortillas and cheese in a large sauce pan over medium heat.
After sauce mixture has simmered for about 5 minutes, begin assembling in a large casserole dish. Add a layer of sauce, a layer of tortillas, a layer of turkey meat, a layer of cheese and repeat. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. After 10 minutes of cooling down, it is ready to be served.

You can't beat a steak dinner

Pan-seared Ribeye with mushroom gravy, creamed potatoes and asparagus

One of my all-time favorite meals is a big juicy steak with baked potato and salad. It doesn’t get much better than that! Steak is one of those menu items most everyone has a firm opinion of how it should be prepared and what cut of meat is their favorite.

A rib-eye is the cut of steak my husband prefers. Yes, you read that right, husband. Morgan and I tied the knot on Saturday and as you read this we are honeymooning in Key West, but I digress.

My husband (still, trying to get used that word) says that the marbled fat within a rib-eye is what makes this cut of steak the best. It’s juicy and full of flavor. When we prepare steak at home he likes to season a rib-eye with a dry rub of paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper and sear it on the grill to about medium temperature.

Dad and I prefer a T-bone steak. To me, it’s the best of both worlds with a strip steak on one side and filet on the other. It’s kind of like a two-for-one. I like to season mine with garlic powder, cracked black pepper, Tony Chachere’s creole seasoning and Worcestershire sauce. A secret my friend Sarah turned me on to a few years ago is to wait until just before cooking the steaks to sprinkle a little kosher salt on the meat.

My friend Donna said she agreed with Morgan that a rib-eye is the best cut of steak. She likes hers “medium rare to kicking, grilled outside if possible, with no seasoning other than salt and pepper.”

The temperature a steak should be cooked is another controversial topic for some. Many want their steak cooked completely done with no hint of red at all, while others insist the steak is only good if cooked somewhere around medium temperature and some want theirs practically mooing! I started out as a well-done kind of girl, but slowly have begun eating them closer to medium. I’m still not the type to order one medium-rare and definitely not rare, but if there’s some blood on the plate I don’t freak out anymore.

My cousin Carrie said she likes her steak grilled medium, covered in Montreal steak seasoning by McCormick.

"Pepper, char and slightly bloody beef goodness,” she said.

My sorority sister Lauren likes hers medium rare.

“It’s best marinated overnight with Lawry’s marinade, served with salad, baked potato or sweet potato,” Lauren said.

Branching out into a little more exotic methods of steak preparation, my good friend Bill prefers steak au poivre.

“I like both Julia Child’s and Alton Brown’s version,” he said. “My wife Lynda is philosophically opposed to sauces and in a restaurant, asks for hers on the side, which means more for me. Steak-frites too. Both of these are pan-fried, but I don’t turn up my nose at a grilled steak either.”

Steak au poivre is essentially a steak seasoned with crushed peppercorns and served with a pan sauce. Several chefs claim to have created the dish according to some interesting history I read on cooksinfo.com. In a 1950 cooking magazine called La Revue Culinaire, Émile Lerch claimed he invented the dish in 1930 after receiving a shipment of frozen beef from America that looked appealing but wasn’t very flavorful. After the article was published, letters flooded in from other chefs claiming that they invented the dish as early as 1905.

If you don't have Julia Child's cookbook on hand, I found a good recipe for steak au poivre over at Cooking with Julian!

More Thanksgiving Yummies! (Trial Turkey Day - Part 2)

Be sure to read part one of my pre-turkey day party. And here are some more recipes from our yummy Pre-Thanksgiving party.

In my menu from my last post I called my sweet potato casserole "crunchy yummy yams" because we already had two other casseroles on the menu. Whatever you call it, it's yummy! Go make some right now!

This is my mom's best friend's recipe and it has always been one of our holiday favorites. Thanks to Patty for sharing her recipe.

3 cups sweet potatoes, cooked (We cheat and use canned yams, I promise it's still delicious!)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 t. vanilla
1/4 cup milk
1/2 stick butter

topping:

1/2 stick butter (I usually find the that half a stick is not quite enough, but a whole stick is a bit too much. I'd recommend using 3/4 a stick)
1 cup brown sugar
1 t. flour
1 cup pecans (chopped)

Mash up the sweet potatoes. Add sugar, butter and milk. Beat egg and add to mixture. Add vanilla. Pour in greased baking dish.

For the topping, melt butter. Add flour, brown sugar and nuts.

Pour topping over sweet potato mixture and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Eat it all up!

Aside from just wanting to celebrate Thanksgiving twice, my other reason for this party was to try new recipes. The new recipe I tried was my dressing. I saw this recipe for cornbread and country ham dressing in Southern Living and thought it looked divine. I made several adjustments to it, however. The main thing I wanted to jazz up this recipe with was collard greens. What goes better with country ham than collard greens? And I ditched the chestnut idea. In the end, I basically ended up making my Mamma's dressing only I used the bacon and country ham and collard greens.

I cooked out the six slices of bacon (I got the good Applewood Smoked kind from Fresh Market! And I may have used eight slices instead of six) and the country ham. Then I added in the chopped celery, onions and collard greens. (I left out the carrot too.) When  this mixture was done, I thought it looked so good I almost just ate it right out of the pan.

I also cheated and used store bought corn bread dressing mix, but I did add in some bread crumbs as well. And, when it comes to the chicken broth I really don't measure. I just keep adding till the dressing is the consistency we like. We don't like dry dressing. I put the dressing mixture in a greased baking dish and topped it with a few pats of butter and baked it on 350 for about 40 minutes.

Overall, I was pleased with the outcome of this new recipe, but I would definitely make a few changes when I make it again. I should have chopped the ham up into much smaller pieces. I also would not add the additional salt the recipe calls for as the ham and bacon make this dish salty enough. I think I might add a bit more collard greens too. I think this recipe is definitely a keeper!

Stay tuned for more Thanksgiving recipes coming soon.