Cornbread stuffing with sausage, apples and fennel

 It's almost 5 pm now and I have made some progress. I'm actually proud of myself, since I have baked two batches of cornbread, made homemade pate', cranberry sauce and, last but not least, this wonderful stuffing. 

Making this was actually one of the easiest tasks today. I mean, between finding the freaking turkey - which is hard to come by whole in Switzerland - and making the cornbread, I'm already exhausted. It's a lot of cooking, I'll tell you. And right now I'm baking a pumpkin cheesecake, which is particularly stressful for me because I hate baking and I hate making dessert. So you can figure how much I hate BAKING DESSERT. 

Anyhow, here's the recipe for the stuffing, which I have tried and is delicious. Trust me, it doesn't get much better than this!

CORNBREAD STUFFING


Cooking spray
2 links hot Italian sausage
10 ounces frozen pearl onions
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 stalks of celery, chopped
3 small red Michigan apples, skin on, chopped
1/2 large fennel bulb, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 loaf cubed cornbread (about 8 cups)
2 eggs
1 cup chicken broth

In a large skillet brown the sausage in its own fat, crumbling with a wooden spoon. Cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Add frozen pearl onions and sprinkle with brown sugar. Cool until the onions are tender and sugar has dissolved, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add celery, fennel and apple (I left the skins on for color, but you can remove them if you like.) Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with thyme and cook for about ten minutes.

Spray a 10x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Mix vegetable mixture and bread cubes in it. In a small bowl beat the eggs into the broth. Season with salt and pepper. Pour over bread and veggie mixture, toss to coat. Bake in a 400F oven for 45 minutes.

Skillet cornbread

Here I am, on Thanksgiving Eve (does that even exist?), trying to make stuff ahead so I don't lose my mind tomorrow like I did in 2008, break my knee like I did in 2009 or end up with food even in my hair like I did in 2010. You live, you learn, they say. We'll see. 

As of now, it's 11 am on Wednesday and I've already baked cornbread for my gluten-free stuffing. That's all folks. It's not like I'm crazy ahead, but in the next few hours I'm going to crank out some serious food... at least the appetizers, the stuffing and the cranberry sauce.

I'll keep you all posted. Hope you are having a great almost-holiday weekend =)

A funny note: buttermilk doesn't exist in Switzerland. Or if it does they hide it so well I couldn't find. So my day started by having to make buttermilk, which is not complicated, you just mix a scant cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice... but it kind of makes you think about the challenges ahead.

SKILLET CORNBREAD

• 3 teaspoons vegetable oil 
• 2 cups buttermilk 
• 1 large egg 
• 1 3/4 cups yellow cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 
  

• Coat bottom and sides of a 10-inch cast-iron skillet with bacon drippings; heat in a 450° oven for 10 minutes.
• Whisk together buttermilk and egg. Add cornmeal, stirring well.
• Stir in baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour batter into hot skillet.
• Bake at 450° for 15 minutes.

The 2011 Thanksgiving Challenge

Holy crap, Thanksgiving is almost here! Seriously, it snuck up on me this year. While I usually plan the meal well in advance, this year I had no idea the holiday was upon us until I started notcing everyone posting Thanksgiving recipes on the web.

For the second time in a row I'm hosting a European Thanksgiving extravaganza, where the extravagant part is cooking it all in a ridicolously small kitchen. For about 15 guests. I know it sounds crazy, but I did last year, I can do it again this year, right? Not to mention that this time my mom and dad will be here, so they can help too. On top of that, I had my mom bring me some brining begs form the U.S., so I can prepare the turkey like I did in 2009, which was the best bird ever... ruined only by the fact that I broke my knee while preparing the meal.

So since I'm a little bored today I thought that planning this year's menu would be a good idea, even though every year I end up changing some of it at the last minute. And this year, other than the tiny kitchen challenge, I have a second one: one of my guests is a vegetarian, another one has to eat gluten free. Here's what I have so far:

Homemade patê

Pumpkin Spread (vegetarian and gluten free)

Mushroom Crostini (vegetarian and gluten free)

Maple-Cider Brined Turkey with Bourbon-Cider Gravy (from Cooking Light)

Brussel Sprouts with Bacon and Garlic (from Cooking Light)

Roasted Rosemary Potatoes (vegetarian and gluten free)

Apple and Cranberry Sauce (vegetarian and gluten free)

Ciabatta Stuffing with Chestnuts and Raisins (from Cooking Light) (vegetarian)

Corn Bread Stuffing with Sausage and Apples (gluten free)

Pumpkin Almond Cheesecake (from Cooking Light)

Classic herbed roasted turkey

So yesterday I had my first "European" Thanksgiving in a long time and, let me tell you, it was a blast. I had never hosted a dinner party for sixteen people before. It was hard but it was fun and everyone was so helpful we didn't have any big problems. Well, except the fact that I forgot to serve my chestnut soup I had worked so hard to make... guess I'll be eating a lot of it in the next few days. 

Other than that we all gathered around the dinner table and we ate, and ate, and ate

. 

As I watched my guests chowing down turkey, mashed potatoes, roasted cauliflower, stuffing and whatever else they could get their hands on, I realized that this year I have many things to be thankful for. There's the old friends I can now see on a regular basis without having to cross an ocean. There's the new friends that welcomed me into their lives. There has been a few wonderful trips —Madrid, Barcelona and the Amalfi Coast come to mind— and the plan to take a few great ones in the near future. There's the fact that this year I didn't break my knee while cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I mean, I want to take that one as a good omen. There's snow coming this way and there's ski trips and snowmen and hot mulled wine and all the wonderful wintery things I've missed so much in the past nine years. 

So yes, I have a lot to be thankful for and only a few things that I seriously need to change in my life. But I'm content. And calm. Which, if you know me well, you'll know it doesn't happen very often. 

CLASSIC HERBED TURKEY 

• Adapted from Cooking Light
• 
  
• 1  (12-pound) fresh or frozen turkey, thawed
• 4  thyme sprigs
• 4  sage leaves
• 4  garlic cloves
• 1  medium onion, quartered
• 4 tablespoons  butter, softened
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  kosher salt
• 3/4  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 1  cup  chicken broth

Preheat oven to 500°.

To prepare the turkey, remove giblets and neck from turkey; reserve for gravy. Trim excess fat. Stuff body cavity with 4 thyme sprigs, sage leaves, garlic, and medium onion. Tie legs together with kitchen string.

Starting at neck cavity, loosen skin from breast and drumsticks by inserting fingers, gently pushing between skin and meat. Combine butter, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 3/4 teaspoon pepper. Rub butter mixture under loosened skin over breast and drumsticks. Lift wing tips up and over back; tuck under turkey. Pour 1 cup water in bottom of a roasting pan. Place roasting rack in pan. Arrange turkey, breast side up, on roasting rack. Bake at 500° for 30 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 350° (do not remove turkey from oven).

Bake turkey at 350° for 1 1/2 hours or until a thermometer inserted into meaty part of thigh registers 165°. (Shield turkey with foil if it browns too quickly.) Remove turkey from the oven; let stand 20 minutes. 

The 2010 Thanksgiving challenge... cooking the meal in a small European kitchen (without breaking any of my bones)

So yes, this year Thanksgiving is going to be a bit of a challenge. A double challenge, actually. First of all, I have to cook the whole meal by myself —which I know from experience can be extremely tricky. Also, I'd like to cook my Thanksgiving dinner without breaking a knee, which I managed to do last year. Thank God I broke it towards the end of the cooking process, so all there was left to do was making the gravy. So when I slipped and fell and broke my left knee my first words were "Who the hell is going to make the gravy now?" So despite the fact that my knee had swollen to double its size, despite the pain, and despite the fact that my mom wanted to take me to the ER, I braved it. They sat me down in the kitchen with ice on my knee, my leg up in the air and a vodka martini in my hand to ease the pain. From there I barked orders to the rest of the party, which won me the nickname "kitchen nazi". 

Dinner was fabulous, by the way, and I truly enjoyed it even with my broken knee. 

But this year, I'll try to make my Thanksgiving dinner a little less eventful. I've invited about 12 people. If they all show up it will be my biggest Thanksgiving so far, so I have a lot of planning to do, especially because this tiny kitchen was not meant for big gathering. But, well, who cares? I hope I can pull it off. 

So here's the official menu I've decided to make. Brace yourselves. 

Homemade pate'

Creamy mushrooms phyllo triangles

Clams Casino

Roasted chestnut soup

Roasted turkey with truffle gravy

Cranberry sauce

Stuffing with sausage, fennel and apples

Mashed potatoes with goat cheese and chives

Sauteed carrots with sage

Roasted cauliflower with fresh herbs

Apple pie

Just writing it down is scary. The thought of actually cooking it... well, it's scary. And exhilarating. We'll see what happens...

Toast cups

What to do with the stupid turkey? When you happen to buy a 12 pound turkey and you only have a few people to feed leftovers can become kind of overwhelming. Especially if you don't particularly like turkey. Which I don't. I mean, I'll eat it -especially if brined and moist as the one I prepared this year!)- but after a few sliced of breast meat and a couple of turkey sandwiches I quickly become tired of it. You could say that us Italians have a thing against turkey. I know my family does, and that's why we had never roasted one before five or six years ago. And that's also why we don't have many ways of enjoying the leftovers, mostly because, well, we technically don't enjoy turkey meat.

Enters Tommy, who is a real American and likes turkey. And also happens to have this recipe to use up the leftovers that is simply delicious. The first time he made it for me I was amazed. Apparently there was a good way to use the stupid leftover turkey. So from that day on I started looking forward to roasting chickens and turkeys because I knew what I was going to do with the leftovers: toast cups. When Tommy was little his mother used to make the "cups" by buttering bread slices and stuffing them in a muffin pan. That happens to be my favorite way of making them too, but Tommy nowadays likes them better with Pillsbury puff pastry. and since he's the one who gave me the recipe to begin with, I happily comply.

TOAST CUPS

One package Pillsbury puff pastries
1 large can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 onion, minced
1 can sweet peas
Leftover turkey
Salt and pepper, to taste

Chop the onion and saute it with a little butter in a large Dutch oven for a few minutes. Add the cream of chicken soup, peas and leftover turkey. Season with salt and pepper to your liking. Turn the heat to medium low and let the concoction warm up slowly.

In the mean time, bake the individual puff pastries according to the directions on the package (it takes about 20 minutes to cook them.)

Remove the top from each puff pastry and pour turkey mixture in them. Serve hot.

Best sausage and apple stuffing

Do I have a picture of the actual stuffing with deliciously browned bread and all? No. And why is that? Because this year I decided to go and injure myself right before Thanksgiving dinner was done. As a matter of fact, putting the stuffing together was the last thing I did before I slipped and hurt my knee so badly I had to spend the rest of the night with my ass parked on a chair and my left leg up in the air, ice on the knee and all.

How on earth did I manage to hurt myself that bad, one might ask. Actually a lot of people asked, including my mother. Her and dad showed up at my house shortly after the accident bearing gifts of cranberry sauce, pear pie and lots of good quality red wine, only to find their daughter sitting on a chair, chugging a martini and -I'm not ashamed to admit- crying a little. I wasn't crying for the pain, although it did hurt. I was crying because I was so royally pissed and I felt so useless, sitting there, having to tell everyone else what to do to finish the feast I had started to cook. My mother, of course, sprung into action and made the gravy for me, while someone else put my stuffing in the oven. The question though -how did you manage to fall- was still being asked because, according to my family and friends, only old ladies fall down in their house and break their hip. Granted that I didn't have a broken hip, they were still curious. And the answer is really simple: I was rushing around the kitchen and slipped on some water -water that had dripped from one of the coolers, possibly the one were I brined the turkey. Anyway, that's it. That easy. One second you are up and moving, the next you are sitting on a chair with a knee brace and a doctor's appointment on Wednesday. But the good news is that the stuffing turned out great, which made me particularly happy because I love stuffing and I made this one up instead of following the recipes I had. And for those of you who are wondering what happened to my great plans of making a second stuffing with oysters in it... well, you can figure I wasn't exactly in the right shape for that.

SAUSAGE AND APPLE STUFFING:

Cooking spray
2 links hot Italian sausage
10 ounces frozen pearl onions
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 stalks of celery, chopped
3 small red Michigan apples, skin on, chopped
1/2 large fennel bulb, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
1 loaf of your favorite bread (I used potato bread), cubed and toasted
2 eggs
1 cup chicken broth

In a large skillet brown the sausage in its own fat, crumbling with a wooden spoon. Cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Add frozen pearl onions and sprinkle with brown sugar. Cool until the onions are tender and sugar has dissolved, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add celery, fennel and apple (I left the skins on for color, but you can remove them if you like.) Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with thyme and cook for about ten minutes.

Spray a 10x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Mix vegetable mixture and bread cubes in it. In a small bowl beat the eggs into the broth. Season with salt and pepper. Pour over bread and veggie mixture, toss to coat. Bake in a 400F oven for 45 minutes.

Pear pie with caramel sauce

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was great, although maybe not as eventful as mine. I'm currently sitting on my couch with a big glass of red wine in my hand and a very swollen left knee that hurts like hell. Last night, as the turkey was almost done and we were about to start making oysters Rockefeller I slipped on a little bit of water that was on the kitchen floor and flew up in the air and down on the floor so fast I didn't know what hit me. One second I was happily skipping around the kitchen making Thanksgiving dinner. The next I was landing square on my left knee, putting all my weight on in. It hurt right away. Bad. Tommy and my friends put me in a chair, made me a Martini and elevated my leg (in that order). You know, the things good friends do when you injure your self in the midst of a freaking cooking marathon. Naturally there was no time for dwelling, for my parents were due to arrive in minutes and several things still had to be done -the potatoes had to be mashed, the gravy had to be made, the stuffing was sitting half made half not on the counter. So they left me sitting in my chair, in the kitchen, martini in hand and ice on my knee, and they started running around the kitchen, getting stuff done, following my orders as I barked them out. Within minutes my parents were in the kitchen also, dinner was almost ready and I had rightfully won myself the nickname of "kitchen nazi".

But what's important is that Thanksgiving dinner was fabulous. And boy, was I glad my mom had made this wonderful pie!

PEAR PIE WITH CARAMEL SAUCE

From Cooking Light:

3 ounces all-purpose flour, divided (about 2/3 cup)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
6 medium firm pears, peeled, cored, and cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch-thick wedges
1/2 (15-ounce) package refrigerated pie dough (such as Pillsbury)
Cooking spray
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces

Sauce:

1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 teaspoons water

Preheat oven to 375°.

To prepare pie, weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine 1 1/2 ounces (about 1/3 cup) flour, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Add juice and pears to flour mixture; toss gently to coat. Roll dough into an 11-inch circle; fit dough into a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Fold edges under and flute. Arrange pear mixture in an even layer in prepared crust.

Combine remaining 1 1/2 ounces (about 1/3 cup) flour and 1/3 cup brown sugar in a bowl. Add 3 tablespoons cold butter to brown sugar mixture; cut in with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle butter mixture evenly over pears. Bake at 375° for 1 hour or until lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack 10 minutes.

To prepare sauce, combine 1/3 cup brown sugar, cream, and 2 tablespoons softened butter in a small, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat; bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute or until thickened. Remove from heat; stir in 2 teaspoons water. Serve at room temperature or slightly warmed with pie.

Italian style pumpkin "pie"

For those of you who were wondering, no, I haven't disappeared into thin air. I was out of town again for the weekend and then I was scrambling to get all my work done before today because I had asked for today off in order to get stuff done for the big Thanksgiving feast. Also my good childhood friend Margherita is coming into town tonight so I wanted to be ready to drink myself sillier-than-usual, without having to worry about prepping food and slaving in the kitchen.

This morning I woke up at 8 to see one of the crappiest, rainiest days of the year outside my window and all I could think was:
a) Margherita is going to be pissed because she's coming here from NYC to get a tan and go to the beach
b) On the bright side I'll get tons of crap done thanks to the inclement weather

Well, we all know what happens to good intentions.

So far I have only placed the bird in a cooler with its brine and cooked some veggies and sausage mixture for the stuffing. Not as much as I thought I'd get done, I admit. But, oh well, no point sitting here feeling sorry for myself, right? After all, I still have to prepare tonight's dinner, so I'm not quite sure why I'm freaking out about tomorrow's.

The only bit of good news that I have is that last night Tommy and I went to my parents' house for dinner and my mom prepared a wonderful, wonderful dish she learned to make while visiting her good friend Dora in Mantua this past September. It's not your average pumpkin pie, and no, it cannot be prepared with canned pumpkin, but it' a delicious appetizer, especially when pared up with good quality Italian cold cuts such as prosciutto, soppressata and breasola. It was so good we decided to make it as a side dish for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

ITALIAN STYLE PUMPKIN "PIE"

1 medium pie pumpkin
1 cup pine nuts
A few pieces of pear mostarda (available at specialty stores)
10 amaretti cookies, crumbled
Nutmeg
Salt and pepper
3/4 cup pecorino romano cheese
3/4 cup parmigiano reggiano cheese
Butter

Grease a pie tin with butter. Cut pumpkin into thin slices and place a layer into buttered thin. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, half the pine nuts, half the amaretti cookies and half the cheese. Make another pumpkin layer and season the same way. Top with a few small cubes of butter.
Cover pie with foil. Cook covered at 385F for about an hour. Serve with cold cuts if desired.

Thanksgiving countdown!

A week from today I'll be tackling Thanksgiving for the 4th time in my life and, also, for the 4th in a row. I have just written a "strategic guide to Thanksgiving" for the paper I work for and was surprised to receive many e-mails about it. Apparently I wasn't the only one to make a few dramatic mistakes the first time I hosted a turkey dinner. I'm no expert now, but I got better with the years and once again I'm pretty psyched to be the one cooking the Thanksgiving feast. If you want to read my witticism about turkey day, here's a link to my article in the newspaper. After long deliberation I have finally come up with my menu:

Oysters Rockafeller
Roasted herbed turkey with truffle gravy
Oyster dressing
Chestnut, sausage and apple stuffing
Mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar and nut crust
Cranberry chutney
Brussels sprouts with walnuts and apples
Pear pie with strusel topping and caramel sauce

Wish me luck. And yes, I have asked my mother to make a couple of the dishes, especially since with the perfect timing that characterizes us we have been out of town last weekend and we are going out of town again this weekend, so I will have no time to prep for the big day other than Tuesday night and Wednesday (which thank God I have taken off work). Because, you know, we like to make everything a challenge. We haven't left town for ten months and we decide to do so twice just before we host Thanksgiving and have friends staying with us. Again: wish me luck.