Thanksgiving Buffet with Sides of Veggies

Thanksgiving Buffet 

This Thanksgiving dinner was hosted by my sister-in-law in her wonderful home a stone's throw from The Main Line. This year, dinner was served buffet style. Twenty-some people were expected to attend. Each family was to bring part of the dinner. Our family, there were to be only two of us as our children were either in London or working at the Movie Tavern, were expected to bring two side dishes - a spaghetti squash dish and candied carrots. You would think that would be easy. I never do anything the easy and I do the cooking.

I am known to not follow a recipe exactly as written. As a matter of fact, there are few times I make anything the same way twice. Plus, I like to try new recipes no matter how important the occasion.

My wife expected the spaghetti squash dish to simply contain tomato sauce and cheese along with the obvious spaghetti squash. She also expected the candied carrots to be just like frozen in the supermarket. I expected better than that. So I was off to the internet to find some recipes.

I follow a few food blogs. One of them is The Pioneer Woman who has a cooking show on the Food Network on Saturdays. On her show last week she made green beans with whole canned tomatoes. I thought that sounded good.

I also Googled "spaghetti squash" and found several other recipes using, feta cheese, ricotta cheese, spinach and nutmeg, none of which I have ever used in my spaghetti squash. So I synthesized my new recipe from all the above sources. Here is what I came up with.

3lb/ 1.36kg spaghetti squash
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
15oz/ 425g ricotta cheese
1 beaten egg
1lb/ 453g mozzarella cheese, shredded 
1/2 cup Romano cheese, grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 cans of diced tomatoes, unseasoned
1 lb chopped raw baby spinach
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Cut the squash in half length-wise, remove seeds, place in baking pan cut side down and pour 1" water into pan. Bake at 400ºF/ 205ºC until done.
Throw the chopped onion and minced garlic in a saute/frying pan on low-medium heat until the onions are just showing some golden brown color.
While baking squash, mix the onions, garlic, ricotta, beaten egg, 1/3 shredded mozzarella, 1/4 cup Romano, chopped spinach, diced tomatoes, salt, pepper and nutmeg in an enormous bowl.

When squash is finished baking turn over and pull a fork across the flesh from blossom end to stem end and create spaghetti-like fibers. Mix then into the cheese/tomato mixture until blended. Transfer everything to a casserole pan. Evenly spread the remaining mozzarella across the top of the pan. Spread the remaining Roman over top of mozzarella.

Bake at 350ºF /176ºC for about 25 minutes or until the cheeses are bubbling and browned in places.

I thought it was good, but then I was invested.

The recipes for candied carrots were also researched on the web. I was looking for a more interesting recipe, a thicker sauce than just brown sugar and butter. I like orange marmalade. I thought the orange would complement the sweetness of the carrots. I decided to use orange marmalade in my candied carrots. Below is my final recipe for candied carrots.

4lb / 1.8kg baby carrots
1 cup orange marmalade
6 Tablespoons cold water
4 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 Tablespoons butter, I only buy unsalted so I can add my own salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons corn starch
4 oz Imperial whiskey

Steam carrots until hot and still firm
While steaming carrots mix:
marmalade, 4 Tablespoons water, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, salt, pepper and nutmeg into a sauce pan. Heat while stirring or whisking the ingredients in the pan until blended.
In a small bowl whisk 4 Tablespoons of water with 2 Tablespoons of corn starch until smooth.
Slowly add the corn starch and water mix to the sauce pan while continuously stirring. Continue to stir and heat the mixture for an additional five minutes as the sauce thickens.
Turn off heat, add the whiskey and stir until combined.

Drain steamed carrots, place in a large bowl. Add in all sugar mix from sauce pan and mix to cover all carrots.

One of the recipes I found on the web called for the addition of rum to the mix. I only had a few liquors in the house and rum was not one of them. Of the two single malt scotches, gin, Kahlua, tequila, red vermouth and Imperial whiskey, I thought the Imperial would work the best.

Again, I thought it tasted good. On the other hand, I thought blue cheese vodka would taste good.

To make a long story short, and let's not mention the fact that I ended up being "Drunk Uncle in the Corner", the meal was a success. Everyone liked my spaghetti squash and candied carrots. Or at least that is what I think they were telling me. 

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Thanksgiving Dinner a Success, If Not Perfect

Thanksgiving this year will be at my sister's-in-law.  Not that we never hosted dinner.  As a matter of fact, soon after we married, we hosted my wife's family for Thanksgiving dinner.  My wife is from a family of ten siblings and her immediate family then amounted to 20 adults (counting girlfriends, boyfriends and close friends).  To give her mother a break we hosted Thanksgiving dinner that year.  It didn't quite go perfectly.

Some of the family 2011
Source:Asya Photography

We had two tables on which our guests would eat dinner.  The kitchen table was 3' in diameter.  Our dinner table was an oval and could be enlarged by adding one leaf to its center.  Even with the leaf inserted, our table situation was insufficient for the number of invited guests.  Knowing this well in advance, I made a table topper to enlarge the dinner table.  It was a sheet of 1/2" plywood that I reclaimed from the dumpster at work, framed with 2x2s.  I cut two pieces of 2x6 to conform to the oval ends of the table. 

 These were attached to the underside so that when the topper was set in place it was centered both widthwise and lengthwise and didn't move at all.  The topper wasn't much larger than the oval table but it added more settings because of its square corners.

Butterball

That Thanksgiving, I awoke early to get the turkey into the oven.  It was the largest bird I could get and needed 5-1/2 – 6-1/2 hours of roasting.  The stuffing needed to be made plus the vegetables and salad.  We had a full day ahead of us.


I called up to my wife, who lingered in the bedroom.  She said she didn't feel well but she would come down to get started with the dinner.  By the time she arrived in the kitchen I had already boiled the giblets, fried the mushrooms and onions and added them to the store bought bags of seasoned bread stuffing and finished it all off with chicken stock.  There were odors of sage, thyme, onions, mushrooms already wafting in the air.  The stuffing was in the bird and the bird in the oven.  The house was beginning to smell like Thanksgiving.  There could have been no more than ten seconds that passed before my wife covered her mouth pivoted one hundred eighty degrees and said, "The smell is making me feel nauseous."  With that she returned to the bedroom and stuffed a bath towel under the door.  She wasn't coming down unless she felt better and she didn't think that would happen until the odors dissipated.

Nausea- Not my wife

Dinner was at our house with 20 adults on their way expecting to be served a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  I had four top burners and one oven.  I had one main counter top that was 25" deep by 38" wide plus a small flat surface to the left of the stove that was 25" deep by 20" wide and an area the same size to the right of the stove that later became the dirty dish dock.  Plus the 3' diameter kitchen table in the breakfast room, three steps from the main countertop.  I felt the weight dropped on my shoulders like a hundred pound sack of rice.  Besides, I was alone.


Leading up to Thanksgiving I made lists and a time table for the food preparation and cooking.  As I finished each task I crossed it off the list.  Those lists and two digital times with alarms save me from disaster.


An hour or so before dinner my sisters-in-law began to arrive and immediately saw what needed to be done and did it.  We managed to juggle the cooking of mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, scalloped potatoes, the candied yams, candied carrots, pearl onions and peas, steamed broccoli, green beans, cauliflower with cheese sauce, brown and serve rolls and apple pie.  As far as I can remember, dinner was a success even if it wasn't perfect.  My wife never did come downstairs that day.


Here is wishing everyone has a wonderful and memorable Thanksgiving.

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©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved