Roasted chestnut and sausage stuffing

Call it dressing, call it stuffing, call it whatever you want - it's all the same when you eat it.  And after years of making different stuffing recipes, I've come to appreciate the value in an easy one that tastes really good.  Unless, of course, you consider roasting chestnuts to be difficult.  Which you probably should.

This is the recipe we've used for the past three years running at Thanksgiving, because it doesn't involve sitting around chopping vegetables for 20 minutes before you even start the cooking.  Plus, we used pre-roasted chestnuts this year, which saved a ton of time and frustration.  Still, there's no experience quite like cursing at a chestnut that won't open correctly; chestnuts are like honey badgers - they're crazy, and they don't care about you or your priorities.  But home-roasted chestnuts can be quite delicious, so it's something to consider when you make this dish.

Here are some of the special tools you should have to make this stuffing:

1. Food processor.  You don't have to chop up vegetables for this recipe.  You just through your mire poix right in the processor and go to town.  So if you don't have a processor, the merits of this dish will be lost on you.
2. Electric bread knife.  You have to tear down a loaf of sourdough bread into cubes for this, and it's a PITA.  If you don't have an electric knife, you at least need a decent serrated bread knife.
3. Paring knife.  If you plan to roast your chestnuts, you need a good paring knife to score them without destroying them.

I found this recipe on Food Network's website after one too many failed stuffing attempts (oysters one year, wild rice another, I think curry found its way in once).  It's really good, and another one of those sides that's overly filling but which we can't live without.  Once nicely roasted, the stuffing gets crispy around the edges and highlights the earthy taste of the chestnuts, the pungent sausage, and the mildly tart kick from the bread, and makes for a really awesome combination of flavors.

Chestnut and Sausage Dressing

By Tyler Florence (unmodified)

• 1 medium carrot, peeled and rough chopped
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
• 1/2 bunch fresh sage
• 1 1/2 pounds loose sweet Italian sausage
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 5 cups cubed sourdough bread, crusts removed
• 1 pound roasted chestnuts
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken stock
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 large egg

The setup - note that we started with pre-roasted chestnuts this year.  No open fires for us.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and butter a 9" x 11" baking dish.  Seriously, butter it up - I forgot to do this once and the bottom got burnt, and it was no fun.  You only need a little, just smear a stick around and then get in the corners with a paper towel to distribute.

In a food processor, puree the carrot, onion, celery (the mire poix) and sage until you have a fine pulp.  Okay, I lied about the no chopping thing - you have to hack the vegetables into pieces small enough to fit in the processor, but that's it!  Cube the sourdough by first removing the crusts, then slicing into about 3/4" rounds, and then cubing that into 3/4" cubes.  Any bigger and the stuffing will come out dry.  Much smaller and it will be mushy.  A little variability in your cuts will help you get any combination of the above consistencies you want.  Roast the chestnuts by scoring an "X" in the convex side of the shells and throwing into a 425 F oven for 30 minutes, until the shells have split open.  Then peel them while they're still warm.  Consult the internet (http://bit.ly/vrwdOo) for further information.

The food processor option is much easier than chopping a bunch of vegetables

This is what the cubed bread should look like.  This would have been vastly expedited with an electric knife

Set a large skillet over medium-high heat and brown the sausage in a little olive oil.  You want to brown this in bite-sized chunks, so throw it in the pan and then break it up with a spoon.  And like I said, you want to BROWN this.  Don't just "grey" your meat - let it get some color on there.  It's called the Maillard reaction, and it's a good thing.  To do this, get the meat broken up into the right sized pieces, then just let it sit for a couple of minutes.  Don't just stir the heck out of it until it's a uniform gross color - let the bottom brown by sitting on the hot pan until the amino acids in the meat start to do their thing, then stir a couple of times to get the other sides similarly browned.

Notice how there is actually some brown coloring on the meat?  You want that - it makes your food taste good.  Stop stirring, and just be patient.

Once you have a nice brown color and the fat has rendered (about 5 minutes), use a slotted spoon to remove the sausage and place in a large mixing bowl.  Add the vegetable pulp to the pan and saute until most of the moisture has evaporated.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add to a large mixing bowl along with the sausage, the bread cubes, and the chestnuts.

Mix together chicken stock, cream and egg.  Pour this wet mixture over the dressing mix. Season and fold everything together.  Now here's a tip - don't press on the stuffing when you put it in the roasting dish; in fact, don't even pour it.  Scoop it out delicately and try to pack into the dish as loosely as possible.  This will ensure that you get good browning and even cooking, and you don't end up with mushy stuffing at the end.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until golden brown on the top (if it gets too brown before the 30 minutes is up, tent with foil).

Light and fluffy before baking, because it wasn't pressed into the pan.  It's like a big delicious cloud of awesomeness.

The finished stuffing, nicely browned and crispy in virtually every bite.

Serve with your favorite fowl, and enjoy!  I find that this doesn't really require any gravy to improve on the flavors, but that doesn't mean it's not still good with gravy.  Besides, what isn't?

Twice-baked Butternut Squash with Kale and Goat Cheese

Wandering the stores before the Thanksgiving holiday, I watched as people bought strawberries, asparagus, and all kinds of other things that aren't in season right now, and probably taste like pale husks of their intended glory.  And I figured it would be irresponsible not to at least serve something that makes you feel like it's actually Autumn.  But all I kept seeing were soup and casserole recipes, and they weren't doing it for me this year.  So I started thinking, what about a "twice-baked squash"?  You know, you cook it, then you fill it up with something, and then you cook it again.  Maybe omit the large amounts of sour cream that rocketed the twice-baked potato to stardom, but at least fill the squash with other seasonal ingredients.  Plus cherry tomatoes - I know, I'm a terrible person.

In my hunt for this recipe, I came pretty close with one from Olive Magazine, which called for zucchini and bell peppers to be stuffed into a roasted squash.  So I modified the ingredient list slightly, to substitute in sauteed kale instead.  The result ended up exceeding my expectations and capacity, full of complex flavors from the roasted vegetables, and filling enough to be its own meal.  For better or worse, this ended up being one of our sides for Thanksgiving, so we ended up with quite a bit left over.  Overall, this recipe would make a great vegetarian dinner or an impressive (but large) side.  I don't even know what to call it because there's so much going on, so let's just go with twice-baked squash.

A bit more healthy than your average twice-baked potato, I'd say

Twice-Baked Butternut Squash with Goat Cheese and Kale

Modified from Olive Magazine, March 2007

• 2 small butternut squash
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• a pinch (1/8 tsp) dried red chile pepper flakes
• 1 tsp thyme, chopped
• 10 ounces kale, torn into bite-sized pieces
• 2 small red onions, cut into thin wedges
• 7 ounces cherry tomatoes
• 3 ounces pine nuts
• 3 ounces goat's cheese, crumbled
• 1 tbsp breadcrumbs
• 1 tbsp parsley, chopped
• 1 tbsp parmesan

Heat the oven to 400 F. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds, then cut criss-cross patterns over the cut side of each one.  Mix together the garlic, 2 tbsp olive oil, chile flakes, and thyme, and brush this mixture over the flesh.

The prepped squash, before roasting

Place the squash on a large sheet pan lined with parchment paper, and bake for about 20-30 minutes.  Then add the onion wedges to the sheet pan, and roast for an additional 20-25 minutes.  Finally, add the tomatoes and pine nuts, and cook for another 10 minutes.  If at any point the squash look to be done, remove them to a plate and finish roasting the remaining vegetables.  What does that look like?  Well, see below.  Also, smoke coming from your oven is a good indicator that you should roast for at least another 3 hours, and then go out for dinner.  Total time for the squash to be in the oven in this step is 45-60 minutes based on how well your oven is calibrated.

The squash and vegetables, after roasting.  Sorry you can't smell this through your computer screen, but maybe if you try hard enough...

To make the filling, saute the kale in a large pan over medium-high heat in the remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Add salt and pepper to taste, and feel free to add some additional crushed garlic in this step as well.  Then, in a small bowl, mix the breadcrumbs, parsley and parmesan.  All of the above steps can be completed early in the day, or the day prior.

Kale - it's not just for decorating cheese trays and salad bars anymore.  Saute in a large pan with olive oil.

Garnish the stuffed squash with a mixture of breadcrumbs, parsley, and freshly grated Parmesan

 

Try to shove everything into the squash in an attractive way, then roast again to brown and melt the cheeses

Arrange the roasted vegetables and goat's cheese in the squash halves, scatter with the breadcrumb mix and bake for a further 10 minutes or until golden and bubbling.  If you prepared the ingredients earlier and they have cooled, add another 10 minutes to the cooking time.

Here's what the finished product looks like, served as part of our Thanksgiving meal

Whole Fresh Cranberry Sauce

What could mean Thanksgiving more than homemade cranberry sauce?  Okay, it could be the turkey, or the pumpkin pie, or the family drama and people screaming at each other.  But for the sake of my sanity, let's say that it's the cranberry sauce.

The world can be divided into two types of people: those who like whole berries in their sauce, and those who prefer the homogenized stuff that can be sliced into beet-like pucks.  I suppose there's a third camp of people who like neither, but those people probably aren't reading this, and therefore I will lump them in with the Amish as people who will never read this blog post.  This does not mean, of course, that the Amish don't like whole berry sauce, which I assume they do.

Making your own cranberry sauce is a family tradition at my house; specifically, it's my job every year.  I claimed this years ago when I discovered how easy it was and how excellent the results can be.  And what's more, it's essentially fool-proof, which I will explain at the end.  Top that off with the fact that it's only got seven ingredients, and I think we have a winner that should be on every table each Thanksgiving.  You can even show up at someone's house with this and tell them how difficult it was to make, earning extra mileage for your easy task.

I'll put the bottom line up-front: this sauce is awesome, and incredibly easy.

This recipe comes from a faded old magazine insert of my mom's from somewhere between the silent film era and the disco era, called "Epicure's Wild Gamesmanship".  It's faded and taped together, and you're always worried about it not surviving through the next holiday but it seems to anyway.  I'll include a picture just for kicks.

Look at how old this thing is!  I'm not even sure turkeys had been domesticated when they printed this

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

from "Epicure's Wild Gamesmanship"

• 1 quart fresh cranberries, washed and cleaned (we just use 1 standard bag)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 tsp powdered cloves
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (we use Vietnamese for extra kick)
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (if you use the stuff from a bottle I will come find you - don't do it!)

Put all ingredients into a medium pot, bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the berries pop.  Don't keep it at a rolling boil, or else you'll end up with a mess to deal with on the stovetop, and this stuff can be like napalm since it's so sticky.  Instead, go for a gentle simmer, stirring to get a feel for how the berries have popped.  Be gentle if you want to have some body to the sauce when you're done; this year I didn't push on the berries to force them to pop.  Only the ones that were ready to go after 15 minutes ended up bursting fully, so we will have more berry consistency when we eat tomorrow.

This is all you need (plus water)

Kind of looks like Christmas, doesn't it?

This is what the berries look like when they start splitting open.  Cook for a few more minutes to let the pectin from the berries get out and swim around in the cooking liquid.

When the berries have popped, that means they have released their pectin into the sauce.  Pectin is one of the wonders of the culinary world, used in pie making as a thickener much like flour is used to thicken a gravy.  You'll find that if you chilled this down right now, it would be pretty close to the correct consistency.  But there's another step.

Remove the berries with a slotted spoon, so you can reduce the liquid without overcooking the berries

Remove the berries with a skimmer (gently), and continue cooking the liquid over low heat until it is the consistency of thick syrup.  You might not know when this occurs because it's hot and things are more viscous then, so here's how you can tell - take a wooden spoon, coat the back, and run a finger down the spoon.  Now hold it vertically and see if the liquid drips down where you had your finger.  If it stays put, you're done.  Pour the liquid over the berries and chill for at least 4 hours.  Serve with your favorite fowl.

Sauce not reduced enough - see the drip over the line?  Give it another minute or two.

That's better - the sauce stays put after you swipe across it and burn your finger.

Now, I mentioned that this is a pretty forgiving recipe, right?  Well, let me list all of the ways you can screw this up and have it still come out great:

1. You only have frozen cranberries.  No matter, throw them in frozen!  In fact, this is even better - you can buy a bunch of bags around Thanksgiving, then save them for the rest of the year to make this on demand.

2. You overcooked the berries before removing them.  Don't worry, just throw the whole thing in a bowl and call it a day, skipping the strain and reduce steps.

3. You squished all the berries while it was boiling, and they're not as "whole" anymore.  So what?

4. You don't have a lemon.  So use an orange.

The finished product

Putting that finished product to good use.  Other recipes from this plate can be found here and here

Braised Beef Short Ribs

If you haven't had short ribs before, there's no time like the present.  They make a rich and meaty stew like a good chuck roast or oxtails, but are also marbled with fat like a ribeye.  So I guess what I'm saying is, they're not quite the perfect diet food; more like the perfect Weight Gain 4000 food.  But that's not important - we're about cooking good food here, not always healthy food.  Plus if you do it right, you can get most of the fat out through extended cooking and proper sauce treatment.  We'll get there, keep your shirt on.

This recipe comes to you from Emeril's show, back when they used to actually have cooking shows on Food Network.  I made it last about 5 years ago, and it was pretty spectacular.  And I asked my friends for $5 each to cover their share, since I was a starving grad student at the time and not running a charity.  I have since seen the exact same dish on a menu for $40, and it didn't taste any better.

I will present the recipe using three different cooking methods, since everyone has their vessel of choice - standard pot, slow cooker, and pressure cooker.  I used the pressure cooker, and start to finish this dish took me 2.5 hours, including an hour of hands-off time.  If you want to use the other methods go for it, but I vote for faster over slower any day of the week, especially since you can't just throw everything in the slow cooker raw and expect magic to happen (you can't people, stop trying!)

Finally, the recipe calls for Essence, which is a spice mix Emeril uses.  You can find it online, or you can buy it in most stores.  I will present it here in ratio format.  If you can't figure out what the line below means, show it to an engineer and he/she will explain it to you.

Essence - 2.5 paprika : 2 salt : 2 garlic powder : 1 black pepper : 1 onion powder : 1 cayenne pepper : 1 oregano : 1 thyme

Braised Beef Short Ribs and Root Vegetables over Egg Noodles
Recipe courtesy Emeril Lagasse, 2003

• 2 racks beef short ribs (4 to 5 pounds), cut into individual ribs
• 2 tablespoons Essence
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onions
• 1 stalk celery, trimmed and chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 cup ruby port
• 2 cups dry red wine
• 4 cups veal or beef stock
• 1 pound butternut or acorn squash, peeled, fibers removed, and cubed
• 2 parsnips, peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks
• 2 carrots, peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks
• 12 ounces egg noodles, cooked al dente, accompaniment
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions, garnish
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley, garnish

Season the ribs with the Essence on both sides; don't be stingy with the seasoning.  Let the ribs hang out with the seasoning for at least 15 minutes, preferably an hour.

Season up the short ribs on both sides.

In a Dutch oven or large, heavy covered pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat.  Add the ribs in batches (I go with about 6 at a time) to prevent crowding and sear on all sides.  Actually brown them - don't just 'grey' them.  Get some color on there, like the picture.  You want to caramelize the sugars in the meat and form some deep flavors, including those which stick to the pan that you will be deglazing shortly.

Brown the meat in a heavy skillet, like this cast iron guy.  Really get some color on them - don't just roll them around until they stop being red.  Small batches, don't overcrowd or you'll just steam the meat.

See - they're browned.  Not grey.

Remove the meat with tongs to a plate, or to the pressure cooker/slow cooker if you're using either.  Add the onions, celery and carrots to the fat remaining in the pan, and cook, stirring, until soft and starting to caramelize, about 7 minutes.  Add the garlic, salt, red pepper, and black pepper, and cook for 30 seconds.  Add the tomato paste, bay leaves, rosemary, and thyme, and cook for 2 minutes.  Being careful not to blow yourself up, add the Port and red wine and bring to a boil, stirring to deglaze the pan.  You may even consider turning off the gas when you pour in the fortified wine, unless you really don't like your eyebrows.  Cook until liquid is reduced by half.

Cook the mirepoix of vegetables in the same skillet, stirring to scrape up the browned bits from the pan.

Pot directions: Add the ribs and stock and return to a boil.  Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer, cover, and simmer until the meat is tender, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  During cooking, make sure that there is at least 1-inch of liquid in the pot; add more stock or water as necessary to cover.

Pressure cooker directions: Bring the ribs and stock up to temperature while you're cooking the other vegetables in your dutch oven / skillet.  Once they're done, transfer to the pressure cooker and seal.  Cook for 40 minutes.

Slow cooker directions: Similar to the pressure cooker, transfer everything to the slow cooker as it is finished in the above process, and put it on low for 4-6 hours, or high for 2-3 hours.

I went with the pressure cooker on this recipe.  Why?

Because the meat that was falling off the bones in 40 minutes, that's why.

Add the root vegetables and cook until they are tender and the meat easily falls from the bones, another 40 minutes to 1 hour (for a regular pot, 15 minutes for pressure cooker, about an hour for the slow cooker I guess).  Remove from the heat.

Here's a big old bowl of root vegetables, to prove that there is some nutritional value in this dish.  Not the homemade Essence in the top left corner

Transfer the ribs and meat to a large bowl and cover to keep warm.  For the health conscious, pour the liquid into a fat separator and give it a while to settle, then take the non-fat part and boil it down.  At the very least, skim the fat from the surface if possible.  Bring the sauce to a boil and cook until thickened, 10 to 15 minutes.  Remove from the heat and discard the bay leaves.

Short ribs emerging from the mist.  They only come out at night.

To serve, arrange the egg noodles in the middle of a large platter.  Place the ribs on top and spoon the sauce over the meat.  Garnish with green onions and parsley and serve immediately.

The finished product.  Not the best photo because the ribs broke down before they made it to the plate, but it was one of the best meals I've had in a while

Pumpkin Bread

Close on the heels of my pumpkin soup recipe, I wanted to use up the rest of my roasted pie pumpkin.  But since I've eaten pumpkin pie about 5 times in the past 2 weeks, and I will have to eat it another half dozen times in the next 2 weeks, I figured I'd try something slightly different - pumpkin bread.  This is a quick bread following the 'muffin method', by which I mean dumping a bunch of dry ingredients into a wet ingredient bowl to form a batter, activating a leavening agent (baking soda) which will help the bread rise in the absence of yeast.

A quick search online found a very popular recipe, which I upgraded by replacing canned pumpkin with actual roasted pumpkin.  I also made a half recipe into a single loaf for what should have made 1.5 loaves, because I like my muffin-breads a bit taller.  I did not exercise my time-tested tip of replacing half of the oil with applesauce like I do for my banana bread, but I know it will work with minimal impact to the flavor.  With that, I give you...

The finished pumpkin bread

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

• 1/2 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree, or 8 ounces roasted pie pumpkin
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (trick: you can substitute half of this for applesauce!)
• 1/3 cup water
• 1-1/2 cups white sugar
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 7x3 inch loaf pan - rub butter all over the inside with a paper towel, then put in about 2 tbsp of flour and rotate it all around by shaking the pan, including up the sides, until it's thoroughly coated.

The greased and floured loaf pan

In the larger of two bowls, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil (or oil/applesauce mix), water and sugar until well blended.  In a separate smaller bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.  Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended - don't overstir this, or you will get tough, poorly risen bread!  Pour into the prepared pan(s), and shape gently to get the mixture to be roughly flat in the pan.

Roasted pumpkin!  So much better than the canned stuff

Ah, the muffin method - my old friend.  Make sure you have extra room in the liquid bowl, since that's where it all ends up.  Always add the dry to the wet.

Give it a few shakes.  Don't smack it on the table - it didn't do anything to you

Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven.  The loaves are done when a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Be sure you test in the center, because that's where the bread will be the least cooked, and you are liable to end up with a slightly underdone core otherwise.

Here's a final step you should keep in mind - the cooling process.  You want the loaf to cool down enough to shrink away from the edges of the pan, but not so much that it steams itself soggy.  So give the loaf 30 minutes in the pan to cool slightly, then turn it out onto a cooling rack and let it cool the rest of the way.  Mine got a little depressed-looking when I passed out on the couch after removing it from the oven, so you'll have to use your imagination about what the FINAL pumpkin bread actually looks like.  But I assure you, the flavor was spectacular, and the pumpkin taste was festive without being overly pie-like.  Sorry, pie lovers.