Posted originally on Nov 23, 2023 By Martin Armstrong 

As we gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, we want to take a moment to express our deepest gratitude to you—our valued readers. Your open minds and insatiable appetite for learning inspire and drive us forward.

This Thanksgiving, we reflect on the journey we’ve embarked upon together and are thankful for the community we’ve built. Your commitment to seeking knowledge, exploring new ideas, and engaging in meaningful conversations is the heartbeat of our company.

As we pause to give thanks, we extend our warmest wishes to you and your loved ones. May your Thanksgiving be filled with joy, gratitude, and the company of those who matter most.

PS. We take no responsibility for any political debates that occur at your Thanksgiving table.

November 23, 2023 | Menagerie | 20 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving. Living well always includes gratitude.

“Here we touch on… one of the secrets of the spiritual life that also is one of the laws of happiness. The more we cultivate gratitude and thanksgiving, the more open our hearts are to God’s action, so that we can receive life from God and be transformed and enlarged. By contrast, if we bury ourselves in discontent, permanent dissatisfaction, then our hearts close themselves insidiously against life, against God’s gift” (The Way of Trust and Love, p. 112).

Father Jacques Phillippe

Posted originally on the CTH on November 20, 2023 | Menagerie | 326 Comments

From my comment at Stella’s Place, on her recipe post, here’s our family’s sweet potato casserole recipe, with a pecan topping.

It’s not Thanksgiving for our family without a good sweet potato casserole. I wouldn’t eat sweet potatoes until I was in my twenties, but now I love them. I became the person who brings the huge pan of them to our big family meal long ago.

My husband’s huge extended family goes all out for the day, with all his siblings trying to show up with kids and grandkids. There may be one very elderly but super active and fit aunt to come. The members of that oldest generation are sadly almost gone.

Everyone who comes brings their specialties, and after so many years, we don’t plan a menu. We show up before noon, and there will be maybe a dozen or so sides, more than a half dozen desserts, two or three turkeys, several hams. A bouncy house in the huge yard for the kids, which makes for a much more peaceful day, and good fun all around complete the day.

I don’t have a recipe anymore, so these are approximations. You can find recipes for similar casseroles, but the topping ingredients always include flour. Don’t add flour! It ruins a good crunchy topping, makes it cakey.

About 3# sweet potatoes, half stick of butter, 3 large eggs, pinch of salt, cup of milk, quarter cup of sugar. Mix cooked sweet potatoes with all ingredients and beat well.

Mix about 1/4 cup butter, softened, one cup brown sugar, and one cup pecans into a crumbly topping and drop onto the sweet potato mixture. Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes until topping is browned.

I tried to reduce quantities to make a smaller, normal size casserole. To adjust according to taste, etc., don’t add all the ingredients at once. For example, start with a quarter cup of sugar, and check the tast after you mix the other ingredients in. You may want more sugar. Add milk gradually. You want the mix to be a little thicker than a pudding. If topping has too much butter, add a few more nuts and a little brown sugar.

You can also add vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon if you wish.

Also posted over at Stella’s, here’s another family favorite.

For those who’d like to try a true Southern cornbread dressing, here’s my favorite recipe, my Aunt Gay’s dressing. She was one of the best cooks I’ve ever learned from. She loved to give out her recipes, and kept index cards with her favorites, ready to gift to anyone who asked, so unlike me, she measured!

I have a lot of her recipes, and may share more later. She made the best, the most addicting Chex mix I’ve ever had. I often make a quad batch to give out during the holidays. And she gave me a cookie recipe, not originally hers, that is far and away the most delicious cookie I’ve ever tasted.

The family does some underhanded and dirty dealing to steal, yes, steal, as many of those cookies as they can. Let’s just say that you can’t turn your back on them, and not one of them can be trusted to deliver cookies to an absent friend or family member. Although they will solemnly swear to deliver them, they never do. Learned my lesson.

7” pone of cornbread, cooked, cooled, then crumbled one day ahead
10 biscuits, also cooked and crumbled ahead
5 slices white bread, laid out the day before. Note here, I like 3 slices thick French bread, torn in pieces, instead of white bread.
5 eggs
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper (I use a lot more)
3 tsp sage, or less. I like less.
2 cups chopped celery and one cup chopped onion, sautéed in 3/4 stick butter
4 cups chicken or turkey broth
Aunt Gay notes that she used Ketner’s Mill cornmeal, which is from a local mill, and you may not need as much broth if you use a store bought brand.

Bake at 350 1.5 -2 hours until very brown. My own note here. Although she was pretty careful about measuring, you want this dressing to go in the oven sopping with the butter from the vegetables and the broth. When you assemble it all, if you don’t have broth slightly covering the cornmeal mixture, you don’t have enough.

Oh, so good with fresh turkey and cranberry sauce. I can eat dressing for days after Thanksgiving, and never get tired of it. I love both kinds, our cornbread dressing, and the wonderful bread varieties. Maybe I’ll spare some of my sourdough bread or rolls to make some this year.

I like to buy fresh sage, which I also use in the cavity of the turkey, when I cook a whole one.

Here’s to you Aunt Gay, in gratitude for all you taught me, and the wonderful recipes you left me. May you rest in peace.

And finally, my favorite turkey recipe. One of our first commenters posted this at the prior blog we all hung out at, and I tried it the next day. Hard decision for me, because I’d always used Aunt Gay’s super easy no fail recipe, and man, was it good. So, it was a big risk, and I still use this method to brine and prepare the turkey. Nowadays I smoke my turkeys, but the recipe stays the same.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe-1950271

If you’re interested in a much easier way to cook a great, super moist turkey, here’s Aunt Gay’s recipe.

Place the prepared bird in the roaster. Generously salt and pepper the bird, and stuff the cavity with at least half a stick of butter.

My own exception: use some of the aromatics from the Alton Brown recipe instead of just butter in the cavity.

Depending on the size of the bird, put 2.5-3 cups of water in the pan. Use a double layer of wide heavy duty foil and crimp tightly all around the pan. Essentially,  you are going to slow steam the turkey.

Cook at 200-225* overnight. Again, temp and length of time depends on how big your bird is.

This will not give you a beautiful bird you can platter up and make the center of your table. It’s going to fall off the bones into the juices. It will be very moist, and delicious, but not pretty. You must really get the foil tight and sealed in order to keep the juices in. If you don’t, the water will evaporate and your turkey will dry out.

You’ll wake up starving due to the wonderful smells all night, and have the oven available for all your sides and desserts!

Posted originally on the CTH on November 18, 2023 | Menagerie 

From my comment at Stella’s Place, on her recipe post, here’s our family’s sweet potato casserole recipe, with a pecan topping.

It’s not Thanksgiving for our family without a good sweet potato casserole. I wouldn’t eat sweet potatoes until I was in my twenties, but now I love them. I became the person who brings the huge pan of them to our big family meal long ago.

My husband’s huge extended family goes all out for the day, with all his siblings trying to show up with kids and grandkids. There may be one very elderly but super active and fit aunt to come. The members of that oldest generation are sadly almost gone.

Everyone who comes brings their specialties, and after so many years, we don’t plan a menu. We show up before noon, and there will be maybe a dozen or so sides, more than a half dozen desserts, two or three turkeys, several hams. A bouncy house in the huge yard for the kids, which makes for a much more peaceful day, and good fun all around complete the day.

I don’t have a recipe anymore, so these are approximations. You can find recipes for similar casseroles, but the topping ingredients always include flour. Don’t add flour! It ruins a good crunchy topping, makes it cakey.

About 3# sweet potatoes, half stick of butter, 3 large eggs, pinch of salt, cup of milk, quarter cup of sugar. Mix cooked sweet potatoes with all ingredients and beat well.

Mix about 1/4 cup butter, softened, one cup brown sugar, and one cup pecans into a crumbly topping and drop onto the sweet potato mixture. Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes until topping is browned.

I tried to reduce quantities to make a smaller, normal size casserole. To adjust according to taste, etc., don’t add all the ingredients at once. For example, start with a quarter cup of sugar, and check the tast after you mix the other ingredients in. You may want more sugar. Add milk gradually. You want the mix to be a little thicker than a pudding. If topping has too much butter, add a few more nuts and a little brown sugar.

You can also add vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon if you wish.

Also posted over at Stella’s, here’s another family favorite.

For those who’d like to try a true Southern cornbread dressing, here’s my favorite recipe, my Aunt Gay’s dressing. She was one of the best cooks I’ve ever learned from. She loved to give out her recipes, and kept index cards with her favorites, ready to gift to anyone who asked, so unlike me, she measured!

I have a lot of her recipes, and may share more later. She made the best, the most addicting Chex mix I’ve ever had. I often make a quad batch to give out during the holidays. And she gave me a cookie recipe, not originally hers, that is far and away the most delicious cookie I’ve ever tasted.

The family does some underhanded and dirty dealing to steal, yes, steal, as many of those cookies as they can. Let’s just say that you can’t turn your back on them, and not one of them can be trusted to deliver cookies to an absent friend or family member. Although they will solemnly swear to deliver them, they never do. Learned my lesson.

7” pone of cornbread, cooked, cooled, then crumbled one day ahead
10 biscuits, also cooked and crumbled ahead
5 slices white bread, laid out the day before. Note here, I like 3 slices thick French bread, torn in pieces, instead of white bread.
5 eggs
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper (I use a lot more)
3 tsp sage, or less. I like less.
2 cups chopped celery and one cup chopped onion, sautéed in 3/4 stick butter
4 cups chicken or turkey broth
Aunt Gay notes that she used Ketner’s Mill cornmeal, which is from a local mill, and you may not need as much broth if you use a store bought brand.

Bake at 350 1.5 -2 hours until very brown. My own note here. Although she was pretty careful about measuring, you want this dressing to go in the oven sopping with the butter from the vegetables and the broth. When you assemble it all, if you don’t have broth slightly covering the cornmeal mixture, you don’t have enough.

Oh, so good with fresh turkey and cranberry sauce. I can eat dressing for days after Thanksgiving, and never get tired of it. I love both kinds, our cornbread dressing, and the wonderful bread varieties. Maybe I’ll spare some of my sourdough bread or rolls to make some this year.

I like to buy fresh sage, which I also use in the cavity of the turkey, when I cook a whole one.

Here’s to you Aunt Gay, in gratitude for all you taught me, and the wonderful recipes you left me. May you rest in peace.

And finally, my favorite turkey recipe. One of our first commenters posted this at the prior blog we all hung out at, and I tried it the next day. Hard decision for me, because I’d always used Aunt Gay’s super easy no fail recipe, and man, was it good. So, it was a big risk, and I still use this method to brine and prepare the turkey. Nowadays I smoke my turkeys, but the recipe stays the same.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe-1950271

If you’re interested in a much easier way to cook a great, super moist turkey, here’s Aunt Gay’s recipe.

Place the prepared bird in the roaster. Generously salt and pepper the bird, and stuff the cavity with at least half a stick of butter.

My own exception: use some of the aromatics from the Alton Brown recipe instead of just butter in the cavity.

Depending on the size of the bird, put 2.5-3 cups of water in the pan. Use a double layer of wide heavy duty foil and crimp tightly all around the pan. Essentially,  you are going to slow steam the turkey.

Cook at 200-225* overnight. Again, temp and length of time depends on how big your bird is.

This will not give you a beautiful bird you can platter up and make the center of your table. It’s going to fall off the bones into the juices. It will be very moist, and delicious, but not pretty. You must really get the foil tight and sealed in order to keep the juices in. If you don’t, the water will evaporate and your turkey will dry out.

You’ll wake up starving due to the wonderful smells all night, and have the oven available for all your sides and desserts!