Thanksgiving A to Z list first, personal thoughts and the actual menu we plan to serve follow. Follow along on Instagram for updates to this list the rest of this week and through the weekend.
A is for Thanksgiving APPETIZERS
How to Put Together an Epic Cheese and Charcuterie Board
How to Prep Different Vegetables for a Crudité Platter
B is for Thanksgiving BRUSSELS SPROUTS
Pan-Roasted Miso Brussels Sprouts and Shiitake Mushrooms {recipe}
Sqirl’s Pan-Roasted and Shaved Brussels Sprouts with Pear
Daphne Oz’s Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad with Lemon, Capers, and Mint
C is for Thanksgiving CRANBERRIES, and all the other CONDIMENTS, DIPS, SAUCES, and SPREADS
Classic Whole Cranberry Sauce with flavor ideas, and Cranberry Pinot Noir Sauce {recipe}
Pomegranate Salsa {recipe}
My Favorite Store-bought Kimchi {resource}
Italian Salsa Verde {recipe}
D is for DEFROSTING THE TURKEY. I know. D is Dessert. Or Drinks. Maybe even Decor. All natural D things for Thanskgiving, but I have been scarred for life by one Thanksgiving a little more than 10 years ago when I underestimated the time I needed to defrost a glacial turkey behemoth and on the morning of Thanksgiving, I found the turkey still partially frozen. Not to fear, because the Internet says that you can “flash-defrost” a turkey by submerging it in water and changing out the water every half-hour until the turkey defrosts.
I did that, and because I was a genius, I did it in HOT WATER to defrost it even faster. And then I read the Internet again and found out that defrosting a turkey in cold water is technically not safe unless you are vigilant about keeping the water temperature at or below 40 degrees, and is wholly UNSAFE in warm or hot water because the warm water becomes a bacteria-breeding hot tub. The truth is, not likely you’re growing a super-colony of turky-borne bacteria, and even if you were, you’d probably kill them when you very safely roast your turkey, BUT I am so paranoid about poisoning, and you know, killing, my own family, that I threw the entire turkey into the trash and we won’t even talk about what we actually had for Thanksgiving that year.
Needless to say, if your turkey is frozen, plan ahead for the defrosting the turkey safely in the lowest part of your refrigerator, and to play it even safer, plan to have it fully defrosted a day in advance. If you are brining your turkey, you need to keep that in mind and might have to add time to your turkey prep schedule. Dry-brining the Zuni Cafe-style turkey takes three days (see “J” below), though the recipe adaptor, Russ Parsons has tested the brine on a frozen turkey, and apparently you can brine the bird WHILE it is defrosting in the refrigerator. Praise the mother fucking lard.
E is for Thanksgiving ENTERTAINMENT
Start putting together a playlist now. My family doesn’t let me play anything except Christmas carols all day, but for all those hours I am gleefully alone in the kitchen zone washing, prepping, and cooking ahead of time, I play Sadé, Led Zeppelin, Michael Bublé, and Tupac. Stay tuned, I’ll share my Sonos playlist with you later this week.
I L O V E board games. For adults, Cards Against Humanity is my number one choice. Of course, Cards Against Humanity would totally offend my Dad and confuse my Mom, so we will stick to listening to Christmas carols. However, if there are kids in the house, Sequence, Uno, Monopoly are all great. NO iPADs ALL DAY.
Obviously, have the parade and football on tv. No one watches it, since we’re all listening to Mariah’s All I Want for Christmas is You for the 17th time, but it’s still nice to have on.
F is for FARMERS MARKET CHOPPED SALAD. No one eats salad. NO ONE. I don’t know why we even bother with this here.
Fall Farmers’ Market Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette and Rosemary Garlic Savory Granola {recipe}
G is for Thanksgiving GRAVY. I am not a fan of gravy, as I prefer a thinner, lighter “pan sauce” made from poultry drippings and wine without any sort of flour or cornstarch thickener, but if I ever left gravy off the Thanksgiving table, I’d be excommunicated from the family. So the compromise in our family is that Green Bean Casserole gets a makeover (more on that later), and Gravy stays because our family is almost all Asian and every single day of our entire lives, we don’t eat anything like any of the traditional Thanksgiving foods except on Thanksgiving, so let us have the white people equivalent of sriracha sauce on everything for one day goddamnit it.
Make-Ahead White Wine Turkey Gravy
H is for Thanksgiving HARICOT VERTS. See? Even for this list, I had to compromise between Gravy and Green Beans for “G” my God the metaphor is come to life. Haricot verts is just a skinny type of green bean.
Dry-sautéed Garlic, Ginger and Chili Haricot Verts
Bacon-wrapped Green Beans {recipe}
I is for Thanksgiving ICE CREAM. Between I and J, I had a harder time figuring out what to do with the letter I because I refused to put Ice Cream on this list because you can have ice cream three times a day every day of the year, why waste Thanksgiving dessert on something as quotidien as ice cream? Ok, fine, you can churn your own cranberry pumpkin sage late whatever Fall Harvest flavored ice cream, you goddamned superhero of Thanksgiving.
Or you can be realistic and buy Pumpkin Cookie Butter Ice Cream by Tillamook from the freezer case in any grocery store.
J is for “JUDYBIRD,” Russ Parsons’s Zuni Café-style Dry-brined Turkey. I don’t need to re-print the recipe that’s probably one of the more famous recipes for roast chicken, and now turkey, out there. Plan ahead. It takes three days to brine the turkey, which means you start brining on Monday morning.
Russ Parsons’s take on Judy Rodgers’s Zuni Café-style Dry-brine {Los Angeles Times}
K is for Thanksgiving KITCHEN TOOLS. When it comes to Thanksgiving, there are a LOT of fancy tools, equipment, gadgets, and electronics to help with cooking the dinner, but there is only ONE tool you MUST BUY if you don’t have one already: a meat thermometer. Everything else, from an extra-large roasting pan with rack to food mill, is nice to have. If you have the money, buy them, but you probably already have something that you could tweak to work. But there is nothing that can accurately tell you when the turkey is ready for showtime, i.e. cooked all the way through, not over cooked, killed any possibility of foodborne illness except for a thermometer.
Delicious Dozen List of Thankgiving Kitchen Tools
L is for Thanksgiving LEFTOVERS
night of: After you’ve pulled off all the good meat of the turkey, throw whatever bones are left into the slow cooker along with clean, filtered water and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar before bed, set it on low for 8 hours and wake up Friday morning with Roast Turkey Stock to use that day. Let the slow cooker continue on low for another 16 hours (24 hours total) and you’ll have Roast Turkey Bone Broth.
next morning: sweet Cranberry Cream Cheese Stuffed French Toast, or
savory: Turkey Cobb Waffles with Avocado and Bacon
Brussels Sprouts and Shiitake Bacon Hash with Eggs {recipe}
for lunch: build a Stacked Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich with Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Stuffing, and Mac and Cheese {recipe}
Cranberry Brie Grilled Cheese Sandwich {recipe}
for dinner: use Roast Turkey Bone Broth to make Turkey Pho, freeze the remaining bone broth
because cranberry sauce is the dish we have the most leftover: Cranberry Sour Cream Bread {recipe}
Cranberry Sorbet {recipe}
M is for Thanksgiving MASHED POTATOES
Mashed Potatoes and Cauliflower with Roasted Garlic and Truffle Butter {recipe}
N is for Thanksgiving, but NOT TURKEY. I have the perfect solution to accommodate dinner guests who don’t like turkey at Thanksgiving!
Don’t invite them to your house for dinner.
Unfortunately, you can’t do that when it’s like, you know, your own Dad. We cook a ham for Dad, which he doesn’t eat because he ends up eating turkey anyway (!!!), all the while insisting that he doesn’t like it. Oooo. K. DAD. Eyeroll. This is my reality every year.
Crispy Braised Chicken with Cannellini Beans and Greens {recipe}
Bourbon Maple Glazed Ham {recipe}
O is for Thanksgiving OTHER VEGETABLES. Is there anything else except brussels sprouts, green beans, and my beloved sweet potatoes? Apparently, there is:
Bacon Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese {recipe}
Roasted Butternut Squash with Red Onions and Tahini {recipe}
Roasted Cauliflower and Chickpeas with Walnuts and Parsley {recipe}
Cauliflower Gratin from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon {recipe}
Kale, Kimchi, and Green Apple Slaw {recipe}
P is for Thanksgiving PUMPKIN DESSERTS. I’m going to be honest here, I k i i i i i nda hate pumpkin pie with my entire being. The only part of me that doesn’t hate pumpkin pie is the part that wrote this post: read about my hatred-turned-semi-hatred on the Cook’s Illustrated Pumpkin Pie post. This year, we’re doing fruit for dessert. Just kidding. I love telling my family shit like that just to give myself negotiating leverage when it comes to green bean casserole and stuffing.
End-all, be-all recipe for Pumpkin Pie: Cook’s Illustrated Pumpkin Pie {recipe}
Pumpkin Cheesecake {recipe}
Pumpkin Spice Layer Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Salted Caramel {recipe}
Pumpkin Bread Pudding {recipe}
Q is for QUINOA, RICE, and OTHER WHOLE GRAINS. Also, obviously, we have plain steamed rice on our table every year.
Quinoa Salad with Baby Kale and Roasted Mushrooms from Small Victories by Julia Turshen {recipe}
Quinoa with Radicchio, Roasted Beets, Radish, and Red Onions all the arriteration in this title makes me want to put it in the next section
R is for ROSEMARY GARLIC SAVORY GRANOLA
Rosemary Garlic Savory Granola {recipe}
S is for Thanksgiving STUFFING
Bread Salad with Arugula, Figs, and Roasted Pistachios {recipe} every other day of the year, but at Thanksgiving I can’t call anything “salad” or else no one will eat it so for one day I have to call this “Rustic Stuffing with Fresh Greens, Figs, and Pistachios” and leave out the pistachios because there is a nut allergy in our house.
Stovetop Stuffing. The actual Stovetop brand in the box. Don’t make this.
T is for Thanksgiving TABLE SETTING
U is for UPSIDE-DOWN PERSIMMON CAKE
Persimmon Upside-Down Cake adapted from Jessica Koslow’s Sqirl cookbook, Everything I Want to Eat {recipe}
V is for VODKA
Cranberry Ginger Moscow Mule {cocktail recipe}
W is for What else? WINE
X is for Thanksgiving XTRAS. These are the little details that didn’t fit anywhere else on this list, like what ingredients, foods, or other things to have extra on hand because you never know what’s going to happen. These are the perfect responce to guests who ask “What should I bring?”:
Bottles of wine: you will never, ever, ever, have “too much wine.” Ever.
Ice: Your refrigerator ice maker can’t make ice fast enough for a Thanksgiving dinner party
Chicken, beef, and/or vegetable stock
Butter (if you don’t use the extra, you can freeze it, though you will probably use it very soon for Holiday baking)
Fresh herbs, namely parsley
Garlic and onions
Fruit and things to garnish the turkey serving platter
Disposable storage containers to send leftovers home with guests
Fresh flowers: put them in any room where a guest might wander in
Alka-seltzer, advil/tylenol, and tums
Y is for Thanksgiving YAMS and SWEET POTATOES
Crispy Oven-Fried Sweet Potato Fries with Sriracha Aioli {recipe}
Z is for ZZZZZ