Thanksgiving Food

This year we are staying in Eugene for Thanksgiving. We are invited to our friends the Z’s for turkey dinner, and I volunteered to bring dinner rolls, a vegetable side dish, and a salad.

I’ve been honing my bread-baking skills the last few months, so I definitely wanted to make the rolls from scratch. I “tested” the roll recipe from 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood (see this post) on my Thursday ladies’ group last week. The rolls came out great, in fact TD enlisted me to make 2 dozen for her to take to Seattle for the D family Thanksgiving. This month’s Martha Stewart Everyday Food has a dinner roll recipe, too, and it mentions that you can form the rolls and then freeze them for up to several months and then thaw/2nd rise them in time to bake. I decided to try that for TD’s rolls, she could store them in the freezer until Thanksgiving day and then let them thaw while they drive to Seattle. I kept a few extra and tried the thaw-bake thing earlier this week and I think it made the rolls come out even better than before. My theory is that the moisture is pulled to the surface and it makes the crust crispy. The insides were very soft and moist, however. Yum! So the batch I made for us is currently on top of the fridge, thawing for baking a few hours from now.

I’m “unventing” a vegetable casserole, inspired in part by Smitten Kitchen’s cauliflower gratin (can you believe those colors?) and in part by my guilty enjoyment of that horrible (but yummy) green bean casserole that I’ve never been able to resist at other people’s Thanksgiving dinners. (I never had it as a kid, though, my Mom wasn’t big into fancy side dishes for Turkey Day.) My plan is to make a mac-n-cheese style white sauce (with asiago rather than cheddar) and pour it over roasted butternut squash and fresh asparagus. I’ll probably add some sun-dried tomatoes, too. And bake it with, yes, French’s fried onions on top. I can’t help it. But at least no gray-green canned green beans, right? I’m expecting it to be yummy.

For the salad I’m bringing our top favorite, Moroccan Orange Salad from Frances Price.

Looks like I’d better get busy, dinner’s at 3ish.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I’m so thankful for my family and friends.

“I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers.” Philemon 1:4