Bacon makes it Better!

Sorry that I went AWOL during the biggest cooking week of the year. I had way too much food to cook, and eat, and I got a cold, which interfered with both. Luckily, I managed to stay focused during Thanksgiving.

What decadent feast did we manage to conjure for ourselves – the engagéd gourmands with a penchant for extravagance and an unanswered call for dinner guests? Every dish has a story.

10 pound – Bacon-festooned Tom: He was not lovingly brined by me, but unfortunately by someone else at the turkey dispatchery. Good thing, though, because I couldn’t find a bag big enough to soak the bird. I placed four Niman Ranch Applewood Smoked Bacon slices on the breast to protect it from over browning. This is a trick that Kris’ Mom taught him – German grandmother I am told. And since bacon makes everything better, you can imagine how delicious the gravy became with the addition of the smoky elements from the pork.

Next year I will order a Heritage Turkey in the spring, write encouraging letters to him during the summer, and in the fall make sure to invite enough dinner guests to help us eat the thing AND do dishes.

Sausage and Almond Stuffing: Not coincidentally, this stuffing also included bacon. This was supposed to be chestnut stuffing, because I thought I had a can of whole chestnuts, but instead had chestnut purée (see, I was delirious). So, in went the chopped toasted almonds. Check the recipe out…brandy…turkey liver…bacon.

This stuffing calls to you from the refrigerator. It wakes you up at night. I proclaim this to be henceforth known as our Traditional Family Stuffing Recipe. It will be passed on through the generations of our pork-fed children.

Potato Purée a la Joel Robuchon: Even in the face of being called a traitor to his own country for making French recipes, Kris could not pass up the opportunity that Thanksgiving presents – you can eat anything you want and not feel badly about it. So he made that famous potato purée by that famous renowned chef, Joel Robuchon. At L’Atelier in Paris, Robuchon serves this stuff in its own covered tureen. It’s like mashed potatoes from heaven. This recipe is reason enough to buy his cookbook “Simply French with Patricia Wells.” (Although Kris is going to write the publisher because the binding came undone during stage 5 of the recipe.)

I hope that we will make this recipe for special meals before next Thanksgiving. But perhaps its use should be restricted to very special meals, as 2 sticks of butter to 2 pounds of potatoes is quite decadent, indeed.

Steamed Green Beans: This became a nice foil to all the richness on the plate. I tossed the cooked beans with a little, and I mean a little, olive oil, and a sprinkling of salt and cracked white pepper.

The green beans were Keikko’s favorite part of the meal (without the spice and oil, of course.) She loves to eat the tiny beans inside and leave the rest. She also had some turkey. Is that so wrong? She was thankful that she is an unusually smart bird.

Cranberry Sauce: I don’t know exactly what Kris put into this – balsamic vinegar and apple cider were involved. I do know it tasted zingy and zangy, and quite nice.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit that several items did not make it onto our table.

Cheese Stuffed Squash Blossums: I couldn't resist picking up some of the edible flowers at the Fairway. I intended on stuffing them with chevre, battering them, and frying them up. Unfortunately, my cold starting getting to me around 5pm and I crossed this recipe off my To Do list.

Dinner Rolls: I don’t know whether Fine Cooking was being careless, or I don’t bake enough to pay attention, but I attempted to make dinner rolls from last month’s magazine. While shaping the rolls after the rising period, I noticed that the yeast had not dissolved. No, duh. I was supposed to use rapid rise yeast and not active dry yeast. I decided to chuck it and make…

Thyme Scones: Also from the same issue. These things were exploding biscuits of death. Seriously, Kris tried to make me feel better about the whole thing by biting into one and it burst into scone shrapnel all over the table. We guessed that our exceedingly hot kitchen melted the butter in the batter leading to a very bad texture. This same reason also lead to Kris’…

Tart au Pommes: being cancelled due to butter weeping out of the puff pastry before he could assemble to tart. So, no dessert with dinner for us. By the time we were through cooking, eating and cleaning up the whole delicious mess, neither one of us missed it.

This year, I'm thankful for a sweetie I can not only share a meal with, but prepare a meal with. And we've laid the groundwork for our Traditional Family Thanksgiving meal - something old, something new, something borrowed, and something with bacon in it.