Thanksgiving

This is basically in response to

http://www.notevenacrumb.com/2011/11/gluten-free-grateful-sunday-.html

Is Thanksgiving mainly about being thankful these days, or is it more about Black Friday and Football?


I don't know what the rest of the country is doing, but we LOVE Thanksgiving in our family. It is all about food, family, and feasting. Saying goodbye to summer, bracing for the winter, and yes, being happy for what we have.

I like Thanksgiving a lot better than I used to. One: I learned to cook! Going GF kind of required that. And Two: I don't get sick after eating food. It used to be, I'd eat, enjoy the taste, then suffer. Now I don't suffer, and frankly, our food is way tastier than it used to be.

Since we have gone "Off the Food Grid" we kind of stopped the consumer madness too. I do buy some things during the cyber sales, and spend some time planning for a great Christmas. The days are getting seriously dark about now, and it's not a good time to be outside in any case, so it's a good time to play games or do online shopping or organize the house or hang lights.

This year, our daughter came home from college during break from her first semester away. My first reaction was: "What a waste! Spending 2 days in travel, for 2 days with family, when winter break is only 2 weeks away.". The reality was far different. Our little girl had grown up in surprising ways, and we had some conversations about the future of her life, her role in the family, and all kinds of other stuff, that had never come out before. One item though, that stuck with me is: she missed my food. Even though her food in college is "gluten free", it doesn't "feel as healthy" and it "tastes like cardboard". I'm not totally surprised ... I work VERY hard to get really GOOD ingredients, which is mostly what this blog is about.

What surprised me though, was how important it was to her. When I went away to college, I ate junk, and I knew it was junk, but it was expected: college kids eat junk. For her, the concept of "eating junk" is like ruining her body for no reason. The bar, for her, has been raised. "Food", for her, is important, not just an optional item on a menu of options. The fact I cooked a full spread for Thanksgiving, was key for her trip. She was craving pecan pie.

Mind you, from my point of view, I really didn't have to do as much work as I did. My extended family, as usual, isn't into details like "whether we will show up or not". I'm not sure I care, really. For me, Thanksgiving is a kid of culinary challenge, like Nanowrimo for cooks. In Nanowrimo, you try to write a novella in a month ... just for the challenge of it. One of those Nanowrimo  novels was lately made into a movie: "Like Water for Elephants". Great book, great movie! Thanksgiving feast is like that, for a cook. Can you pull it off? It's a Babette's Feast, but without spending your life's savings. You do it every year, and each year, you get better. Every year, even if it isn't "perfect" ... the audience consumes it (literally) and enjoys it, and then eats free leftovers for a week, another tradition.

This year, I deboned three birds: a goose, a big turkey, and a chicken. The chicken plus the turkey made a "TurHen" (no duck: so not a "TurDuckHen").  I made a double batch of stuffing, because of the two big birds, and 5 pies. I made 5 pies because I wanted to give some away to the one relative who is also GF, but doesn't have a good source of GF pies. I sent her  home with a pecan pie and a pumpkin pie. Also candied yams and brussel's sprouts.

My only regret is that, really, our family prefers goose. EVERYONE ate the goose. I had made the goose for my daughter, who doesn't like turkey much, and as a tip of the hat toward my Grandma, who was very much into goose. But I found that well, in our family, we are ALL into goose, given a choice, and no one ate the turkey. So next year: no turkey. Maybe. Seems like there should be a turkey anyway.

Now, when you debone a bird, it leaves a lot more room for stuffing, which in my mind is the main point of the exercise. It looks like a turkey or goose, but it's basically a turkey or goose shaped sausage, stuffed with awesome flavor. Learning to debone a bird is a learning curve: there are videos on YouTube, but anyone can learn it. Do it a day or three ahead of time, and then set the bird in a brine and ice until you are ready to stuff it.

http://homecooking.about.com/od/turkeyrecipes/ss/turduckensbs.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coRTpDU3QJQ&feature=related

Note: I use a big commercial "aluminum cookie sheet" from Costco for the messy stuff. They cost like 7 dollars and last forever. I sew up the bird with some cotton twine and a big needle. And a very sharp knife.


The stuffing is what confuses the newly gluten-free. Mind you, I LOVE stuffing, and my Mom mostly did it right. Growing up in the South, her stuffing was mostly cornbread, but her method was rather labor-intensive, so I wanted to make it easier. I've been working on that for 15 years or so, and it's pretty close to what I consider perfect. So here is my super-secrete-awesome stuffing!

First, make a batch of cornbread. Basically, just combine these ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 2/3 cups broth or water
• 4 T bacon grease, coconut oil, or olive oil
• 2 cups corn meal (likely rice meal would work too, or any course ground grain)
• 2 cups corn starch  (or any GF flour)
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 Tbls sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp xanthan gum (optional: I don't like it much, in terms of texture).
• 2 tsp. poultry seasoning

Bake it in a greased pan, as for cornbread.

Now, this is NOT great cornbread. It's dry and crumbly. So what? Let it cool, then crumble it or cut it into cubes. Freeze it. Now you have "instant stuffing" whenever you want it.

When it comes time to cook the stuffing, take some of the stuffing cubes, and add about the same amount of  some mix of chopped:

• onions
• celery
• broccoli
• collards
• mushrooms
• bacon
• oysters
• sausage

I.e.: whatever you have around and you happen to enjoy. You need about the same "bulk" of vegies+other as you do of cornbread, but what you use exactly isn't all that important. The seasoning is already in the cornbread, so you don't need to worry about it.

Either stuff the bird, or stuff the casserole pan and add giblets or wings etc. on top.  And bake.

This makes about the most awesome stuffing that I've ever had, and the recipe is easy to alter as needed.


So that tells you how we did the food. Does the food make the occasion? Maybe, with feasts, it does. Or maybe it is just the centerpiece of the table, that gets us together. I can't say that the great food made the weekend, but it helped, and if we hadn't had this "feast" to get us all together, we would never have had the talks and sharing.