Thanksgiving recipes

One thing I always do at Thanksgiving now is to make a batch of cranberry sauce from scratch, from the Ocean Spray Cranberry package. Sort through the berries while washing (they float) and follow the recipe exactly, breaking berries which don't burst. It's so easy, and much better than canned whole-berry sauce. Wonderful if you're transporting food to someone else's house, as it doesn't need to be refrigerated and is best made ahead. For a different flavor, less assertive, add 1/4 teaspoon salt. You can also use part orange juice in place of water and a little orange zest. But I've been going the purist route in recent years, leaving the oranges for raw cranberry relish. For kids, have some mild, jellied Cranberry/Raspberry sauce on hand.

One year here in our garden, we had fresh shelly beans in the garden at Thanksgiving, several varieties, and I combined them with corn, a little caramelized onion and a touch of heavy cream for a "more traditional" succotash. I got the idea from the Joy of Cooking. No cup of butter in the succotash for me. Though tomatoes in succotash are another way to go. Keira's mom used to cook dried corn and add a little cream for fall sometimes to remind everyone how things used to be.

I cooked some of the shellies (fresh seeds from over-grown, but not dried, green beans) separately for myself, since I can't eat corn. Black Valentine and Coco Rose de Prague are good varieties for variable fall weather, and make good shellies as well as green beans. Supplement with frozen lima or green beans if you are short of "shellies".

The Amazon cooking blog has a recipe for roasting a small turkey in 45 minutes. Might need to try it this year for our second shift dinner. Though if I'm going to the trouble of removing the backbone, I'm also going to separate the breast from the dark meat, so I can cook the dark meat a little longer, like they do in restaurants. The Sweet Potato Pie and the dressings for the Romaine salad sound good, too. There are general tips for whole turkey (brine the bird, chill the breast) and for making gravy.

Keira's mom used to partially roast the turkey in a big roasting pan, then remove it, pour off the pan juices for gravy and pile a lot of bread and rice dressing into the pan before placing the bird on top to finish roasting. A good way to prepare enough dressing for everybody and for leftovers, plus gravy. I still follow Grandma Smith's practice of putting the simmered giblets in the dressing. Fresh sage makes a difference, though the bread and rice dressing was good with extra celery, thyme, etc. to make up for a sage allergy.

Don't think I'll be doing deep-fried turkey or crockpot turkey breast. My rolls will be from frozen dough, not "scratch".

Butternut squash and apple cider soup and diabetic apple and pineapple pie sound good. We still have Red Fuji and Pink Lady apples on the trees. We tried several varieties of winter squash this year, but the Butternut family of squash is still best for our hot valley, unless you're exporting Kabocha squash to Japan in June. Francisco grew a Mexican variety that's shaped sort of like a pumpkin, but with some green netting in the skin. He gave a bunch of them away to friends. We grew Argonaut, a giant hybrid butternut. Ours didn't get anywhere near 100 pounds. Next year, maybe we'll go back to Tahitian. Maybe with Rainbow Butternut or Greek Red Butternut.

Hoping that everyone has a wonderful day tomorrow.