Gearing up for Turkey Day!

Butternut Squash and Fennel Soup

Pretty wild but we’re only one month away from Thanksgiving. And while I’m in no rush for the bone numbing cold, I can’t help but admit I’m beyond excited for Turkey Day. But this weekend I realized something kinda stupid on my part. In years past, I’ve posted a bunch about Holiday recipes but often, only after the fact. Can’t imagine that was so helpful. So this year, I’m going all out. And while I won’t only be posting about Thanksgiving recipes, get ready for a full-fledged run down of the traditional and the not so traditional.

Cooking for Em’s family, I always try to toe the line. Every family has their “untouchables” and while I love to come up with all sorts of things like my psychedelic string bean casserole and my Philly soft pretzel stuffing from two years ago, I know there are limits. But no one will be disappointed if I end up serving this butternut squash and fennel soup. I won’t post the recipe until its mastered but its damn close!

So hit me up with any questions or thoughts on Holiday recipe planning and here we go…

Out of the Food Coma

It’s taken almost a full week to recover from the food coma that was our Thanksgiving. I was in the kitchen the whole day but that wasn’t a bad thing! I had plenty of company helping out (some more than others) and the end result was truly unbelievable. Keeping with tradition for some and creating new ideas for others, our Thanksgiving dishes really hit the spot. If you happened to snap some photos of your meal send them my way! OR what about disaster stories? Thanksgiving can’t always work out perfectly, can it? Well I hate to rub it in, but ours definitely did.

Two of the dishes I worked on this year were quite frankly a bit shocking albeit delicious. One because of the main ingredient and the other because of the color….

Being from Philadelphia, I love soft pretzels. And not the nasty sponges available on the streets of New York. I’m talking about the Philly Soft Pretzel. Yet as much as I love them, a box of sixty showed up recently (nothing heels a broken foot like sixty pretzels) and quite frankly that’s a whole lot of chewing. And despite trying our best, the freezer seemed to regenerate each pretzel we ate. But then one day about two weeks ago it hit me. I was reading so much about the perfect bread (day old and stale) for stuffing and I realized I was sitting on a gold mine! So here it is…I may be wrong but until someone shows me otherwise…the first Philadelphia Soft Pretzel and Mustard stuffing. Ironically enough, despite our attempts on Thanksgiving and the days that followed, this stuffing just wouldn’t disappear.

Don’t change the settings on your computer! Trust me, you haven’t accidentally changed your brightness levels. This psychedelic looking dish is my take on string bean casserole and its absolutely great. Roasted beets with blanched string beans tossed with a light balsamic vinaigrette and goat cheese and topped with homemade fried shallots is not only delicious but its much lighter than the traditional dish and I promise you, you’ll love it (even if you just eat the shallots).

I really hope your Thanksgiving was as fun and as enjoyable as ours. We’ve now got a number of great weeks ahead of us with amazingly seasonal ingredients and plenty of celebration. So don’t let the Holiday season overwhelm you. Eat it and Enjoy it!