Thanksgiving Dinner Sides

We are right into Fall now. The weather is cooler and crisper and there are more clouds and overcast days. The leaves are changing colours on the trees and on my way to work I see all the squirrels burying their nuts for the months ahead. With Fall, comes Thanksgiving. Canadian Thanksgiving is just over a week away and we have a couple of posts dedicated to that.

This week we are looking at that big Thanksgiving dinner. Some of the most important elements of that dinner are the sides that accompany the turkey and ham. We have put together a list of yummy sides to try out for your Thanksgiving dinner along with a couple of recipes for ones that we have made in the past at our own dinners.

Green Beans – They seem to be a popular veggie for Fall meals. Try a Green Bean Casserole or Green Beans with Shallots.

Bread – You’ll usually find some sort of bread or buns with you big Thanksgiving dinner and Cornbread or Fresh Biscuits are perfect for that.

Cranberry...-You will most likely find something cranberry with your turkey dinner for something different you can try a Cranberry Relish or a Citrus, Apricot, and Cranberry Compote.

Brussel Sprouts- You will love them or hate them, but they are a permanent part of most Thanksgiving dinners and a way to try them is to crisp and “burn” them like in Samantha’sYummy Brussel Sprouts recipe or cover them with cheese in a Cheesy Brussel Sprout Bake.

Veggies- Most of the time you’ll find your typical veggie mix on the table for dinner but a twist on them would be a Holiday Roasted Vegetable mix or some Maple Bacon Carrots or some Smashed Broccoli.

Sweet Potatoes – Something that always makes me think of turkey dinner is yams/sweet potatoes and a Sweet Potato Salad or Sweet Potato Soup are different takes on this staple.

Here are a couple of recipes that we like to make...

Caramelized Carrots

8-10 carrots

Brown sugar

Butter

Water

Peel and cut carrots into sticks. Place them in a casserole dish and sprinkle some brown sugar onto them along with blobs of butter. Add in a little bit of water so that it just covers the bottom of the dish. Make sure you don’t use too much as you’ll have water coming out of the carrots.

Put in the microwave wave with the lid on for 5-10 minutes or until soft. Don’t overcook.

After they have softened in the microwave, take the lid off and put the dish on the stove top on medium heat. Let the liquid come to a boil and cook off. You want the carrots to caramelize and get all goldenly brown. You can give them a stir here and there while they are cooking on the stove. As soon as they look ready, take the off the stove and serve.

Yam Casserole

3 large yams

1 Tbsp. of butter

1 Tbsp. of honey

Juice of 1 orange

Nutmeg to taste

Salt and pepper

Boil the yams and cool before slipping off the skins. Blend or puree all of the ingredients together. Spoon into a buttered casserole dish and bake at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes. Serve warm.

Fluffy Mashed Potatoes

You’ll often see mashed potatoes on the table at Thanksgiving dinner. One thing that everybody loves is fluffy and flavourful mashed potatoes so take a look at this super simple how-to to make the fluffiest mashed potatoes ever!

The key to fluffy mashed potatoes is to remove as much starch as you possibly can. Boil your potatoes as you usually would. Drain them and rinse them under warm water for about 30 seconds; that’ll get lots of the starch off. Allow them to dry as much as possible.

Pass the potatoes through a food mill/ricer back into the pot that they were cooked in and add 2 cups of whole milk and 12 tablespoons of butter (these measurements were based on 4 pounds of Russet potatoes. Make sure the butter and milk are warm before adding them to the potatoes. Fold the mixture until all combined and season with salt and pepper.

Creamy Soups

Spring is here and the weather is warming up so it’s fitting that it’s our last week of soups! This week we are focusing on creamy soups, ones that are a bit thicker and more filling. You can have these soups as a main meal or even use them as more of a sauce on meals you are having.

Some different types of creamy soups are...chowders (clam, corn, potato, seafood etc.), cream of broccoli, chicken, and celery, mushroom, creamy tomato basil, potato, cauliflower, chicken vegetable with rice (almost like a stew consistency), cheesy broccoli, potato leek, potato and ham, and bisque.

We’re sharing with you a couple of recipes today for creamy soups (you can also look back at one that we posted previously, for Potato Chicken Chowder). One we made for lunch the other day so check them out.

Cream of Potato Soup

For the soup you will need the following ingredients...

2 tbsp. of margarine

1 small onion (diced)

2 tbsp. of flour

2-4 potatoes depending on the size (diced)

2-3 stalks of celery (diced)

4cups of chicken broth

½ tsp. of celery salt

Bacon bits (optional)

First of all, dice up the celery, onion, and potatoes and set aside.

If you are wanting to sprinkle bacon bits on top of your soup, then you can chop up some bacon now to fry later.

Next melt the margarine in a large pot on medium heat.

Add the onion and cook until tender.

Mix in the flour and stir well.

Now add in the potato and the celery along with the broth (we added a cup or so of water as well) and bring to a boil and allow it to continue to boil (with the lid on) for 10-15 minutes. If the potatoes aren’t tender by this time then you can keep on boiling the soup until they are.

While the soup is boiling, you can make a roux for thickening.

In a separate sauce pan, melt 2 tbsp. of margarine and then add 2 tbsp. of flour. Cook and stir for about 5 minutes. Your roux should start thickening to a cake icing consistency. You should see gentle bubbles.

Once it bubbles and is thicker, you can add your 2 cups of cold milk to the pan slowly while whisking. Adding a little bit of liquid at a time is probably the best thing to do and then whisk after each addition. In order for the roux to become properly thickened (we found this out by failing) you need to let it simmer for 10-20 minutes. Once you’ve let it simmer and it looks to be thicker, then it’s ready.

Back to the soup...after letting your soup boil, you should have soft potatoes. Now you can stir in the celery salt and then incorporate the roux you just made. Add in a couple of pinches of salt.

Allow the “finished” soup to simmer at medium temperature for 10 minutes or so and serve.

In this simmer time, we made some bacon bits to put on top of our soup and a cheesy melt to pair our 

soup with for lunch.

'Cream' of Mushroom Soup

3 Tbsp. of olive oil

2 pounds of mushrooms (finely diced)

1 tsp. of fresh thyme

Zest of 1 lemon

2 cloves of garlic (minced)

2 celery stalks (diced)

1 large head of cauliflower (chopped in small chunks)

1 ½ tsp. of sea salt

½ tsp. of black pepper

½ tsp. of onion powder

1 tsp. of Dijon mustard

4 cups of broth

1 cup of unsweetened coconut cream

In a large pot, heat 2 Tbsp. of oil and then add the mushrooms and cook until golden brown and soft. Add in the thyme and lemon and cook for about 2 minutes or until very fragrant.

Set half of this mushroom mixture aside and leave the rest in the pot that they were cooked in. Add in the rest of the olive oil, onion, garlic, and celery and cook until tender.

Now add the cauliflower chunks with the salt, pepper, onion powder, and the mustard. Sauté it all until fragrant and then add in the broth and cook until the cauliflower is tender (about 5-7 minutes). Transfer to a blender and purée.

Once the soup looks smooth, add in the mushrooms that were set aside along with the cream (you could probably use regular cream if you want to) and stir it all up to combine. You might want to add it back to the original pot to warm it up slightly before serving.