Pumpkin Pie - Three Ways

The Thanksgiving “to do” list is often so long we might feel as if, for one day at least, we are working in a professional kitchen. For most people, the Thanksgiving centerpiece around which everything revolves is the turkey. For many people, though, the crowning glory to a bountiful Thanksgiving feast is the pumpkin pie.

(Be sure to check out my Thanksgiving Survival page with tips and techniques for cooking Thanksgiving dinner.)

Since time is at a premium on Thanksgiving, here are three levels of pumpkin pie you can serve this holiday:

1. I Need To Make This Quick Pumpkin Pie
2. Who Needs To Make A Crust - Give Me Some Filling Pumpkin Pie
3. I’ll Make It From Scratch Pumpkin Pie

“I Need To Make This Quick” Pumpkin Pie
Dress up a store bought pie: whip some cream or crème fraiche with brown sugar or maple syrup, a pinch of salt and a little pumpkin pie spice; buy some candied pecans (or make your own, but we’re trying to save time, here), chop them and sprinkle them over the pie. Gently warm some store bought egg nog and glaze your plates with it. It’ll be like serving a nutmeg-spiced crème Anglaise with your pie.

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How To Roast A Perfectly Moist Turkey

A whole turkey, perfectly cooked, juicy in thigh and breast and richly caramelized all over is a thing of beauty, but it is, indeed a rare bird. Turkeys are large, they have a big hole inside them. They are thick in some places and thinner in others. They have appendages that dangle about and can burn.

The Rockwell picture of the happy family gazing at the perfect bird is just that - Rockwell picture, an idealized view of Americana. If you can let go of that picture, there are a couple of ways that you can cook your turkey that almost ensure the perfect bird. It just won’t be a perfect whole bird. Open yourself up to the possibilities and let go of the iconic roast turkey. You and your guests will be glad that you did.

These techniques work especially well if you normally carve the turkey in the kitchen and plate it before bringing it to the dining table. Everyone knows what a classic Thanksgiving bird looks like but I’m sure they will be much happier to have carved moist turkey meat in exchange for a gorgeous looking dried out bird.

Option 1 - Spatchcocking
To spatchcock a turkey (or a chicken, for that matter), lay the turkey breast side down on a stable surface, and using heavy duty kitchen shears, cut along either side of the backbone, through the rib cage. This will take a little muscle. Once you have the backbone out, save it for soup or stock. Now, turn the turkey back over and press down hard on the breast bone. This will crack the bone, and you’ll be able to press the turkey flat.

What good does this do? Now, your meat is a much more even thickness. The legs and thighs will now be nicely exposed to the heat, and the breast meat will be a little protected. Now all you have to do is lay him out in a roasting pan - I usually set him on a "raft" I create by laying carrots and celery stalks in the roasting pan. This keeps the bird off the bottom of the pan and helps build wonderful flavor for your gravy.

Roast your bird at about 375º F, until the breast meat registers about 155ºF and the thigh reads about 175-180º F. Don’t worry; the temperature will continue to rise once the bird is out of the oven. The roasting time will be much less for a spatchcocked bird than for a whole bird. This is good, because your oven will be freed up for other items that need to be baked.

Start checking with an instant read thermometer at one hour for a 14 pound bird. Once the bird is done, take it out of the oven, remove it to a platter and cover with foil to rest for 20 minutes to half an hour while you make the gravy in the roasting pan.

Option 2 - Removing the Thighs and Drumsticks Before Roasting
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Clean Out the Fridge: Making Turkey Soup From Leftovers

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Thanksgiving is almost here so let’s continue thinking about what to do with all those leftovers. You’re most likely finding a lot of information about how to cook a turkey and what to serve with it in your favorite cooking magazines and local newspapers, but let’s talk about what to do with all those leftovers. We already looked at preparing Leftover Thanksgiving Day Turkey Chili so now let’s look at Leftover Thanksgiving Day Soup.

There are two dilemmas that home cooks have around the holidays. One is making room in the refrigerator for the holiday feast. Dilemma two is getting rid of the leftovers after the holiday feast. Fortunately, there is one solution to both of these problems: soup.

If you don’t have any stock lying around before the holidays, make sure you have some good quality chicken or turkey stock from the store. The simplest soup is literally:

Open your refrigerator -
Take out the leftovers -
Dump them in a pot -
Cover them with stock -
Heat -
Serve

Ok, so maybe you need a little more direction than that? Let’s go see what’s leftover in my fridge. Okay, here’s what I have:

Half a jar of salsa
2 limes
Some leftover roast chicken
2 jalapeno peppers
Wonton skins
Carrots
Celery
Peeled cippolini onions
Bacon
Sliced lunch meat - roast beef and ham
Potato scraps in water leftover from squaring a potato for dicing

What’s in the pantry that I can use?

Dried cranberry beans
Mini fusilli pasta
Hot sauce

Sounds like soup to me. I’m thinking some sort of a spin on Tortilla soup.
Here’s what I’ll do.

Quarter the onions. Cut the wonton skins in strips; brush with a little oil, sprinkle with salt and brown/crisp in the oven. (If you have a Fry Daddy, go for the deep fry)

Slice celery and carrots on the bias, then cut jalapenos into small dice.
Cook the bacon and crumble into small pieces.
Cut up lunch meat into little pieces.
Dice potato scraps.

Heat a pan big enough to hold all this stuff, put in some olive oil and let the oil get hot. Add the carrots, celery, jalapenos and onion and season with salt and pepper.
Add some chili powder and the salsa and then some chicken broth.

Put beans in and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the beans get soft. This can take at least 2 hours but you can skip the beans if you don’t have much time or use canned beans if you have them. Add the juice from the limes.

Add the chicken, lunch meats and potatoes after the beans are soft. If you are using canned beans, add the meats and potatoes with the beans and let everything simmer for about 20 minutes.

Add a handful of past but not to much or it will soak up all the stock. Continue simmering until the pasta is done to your liking, about 10 minutes.

Serve in bowls with crumbled bacon and crispy wonton strips on top

Is this a "real" recipe? Well, probably not, but it is real cooking. It’s finding a use for what I have and putting those ingredients together in an appetizing way. Plus, my fridge is now ready for my turkey and big old ham!

Post-Thanksgiving Soup

The clean-out-the-fridge-after-Thanksgiving soup is even easier. You can make Turkey Chili, or you can stick with soup. If your fridge looks like my fridge after the holidays, there will be:

Turkey - Ham - Peas - Mashed potatoes - Carrots - Roasted sweet potatoes
Stuffing - Green beans - Cranberry sauce

First and foremost, you’ll want to make some stock out of the turkey carcass - that will free up a lot of space. Make a minimalist stock - by just covering it with cold water, adding some salt and peppercorns and letting it simmer for a few hours while you do other things. Once you’ve got your stock, the rest is easy.

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