Home Is Wherever Your Family Is

This is my first Thanksgiving away from home.

I know many of my friends have spent their Thanksgivings elsewhere--on campus during undergrad, or with their partner's family, or just on their own--whether because travel was too expensive or because their family was in the middle of shaking up the established order of Thanksgiving rituals, or because for them, Thanksgiving was never a huge holiday.  I always felt saddened by this because for me, Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday.

Thanksgiving in general tends to be a warm and fuzzy holiday: good food, family ties, woolly sweaters and maybe a fire in the fireplace, with the weather getting just cold enough outside for the deck to be a secondary fridge for leftovers (well-protected from raccoons and squirrels, of course).  Even better, my family has a tradition of eating the Thanksgiving meal in the early afternoon--usually around 1 pm--so that the rest of the day can be spent in a cycle of napping, playing Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit, and snacking on leftovers.

When I realized I would have to work on Thanksgiving (people get sick on Thanksgiving, too), I knew I wouldn't be able to go home to my family.  Even if I had the day of Thanksgiving itself off, I have to work on Wednesday and Friday, so going home was out of the question.  Luckily, my brother also decided this year that going home was too far for him to travel.  Instead, he is driving down from the UP and will stay with me, and then on the weekend we will visit our cousin who lives in Chicago now (much cheaper & more manageable than going all the way home to KC).

As the days get closer to the holiday, I started to get the itch to make all the traditional Thanksgiving foods--if we can't go home, maybe I can conjure up all our traditions here.  A few quick searches later and I needed  to make a (rapidly-growing) list of items from the store to make the foods that must be on my Thanksgiving table:
-Turkey breast (for my carnivore brother)
-Trader Joe's vegan "turkey" roast (they were sampling it in the store...it was delicious!) for me
-Mashed potatoes (my spin: with roasted garlic)
-Green bean casserole
-Corn casserole
-Dinner rolls
-Pumpkin pie
+/- some optional dishes that seemed like they should appear, though by now my grocery list was a mile long:
-stuffing (inside of acorn squash from my garden?)
-cranberry sauce (maybe I'll go with the can?)

I have a deep, wide ceramic pasta dish that looks like a flying saucer--I'll be able to bake the stuffing, green bean casserole, and corn casserole together.  Make the pie, rolls, and peel the potatoes the night before and I actually think this is pretty doable.

I'm actually excited to give this a try...preparing a meal like this one takes coordination and a considerable amount of hubris, I suppose, to try and recreate my mother's cooking.  I'm also pretty excited to have my own veggie "turkey" option.  But mostly, I'm just happy and thankful that I'll still get to see some of my family for the holiday.  Even if I can't go home, having my brother here and my cousin a short drive away make it feel like home is actually all around me.

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Recipes

Green bean casserole
1 bag frozen green beans, French cut
~4 oz portabella mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, diced
2-3 T. butter
2-3 T. flour
~1 c. milk, warmed
S&P
French's fried onions (you have to.  It's required.)

1. Saute the mushrooms and onions in the butter.  S&P to taste.
2. Stir in the flour until the butter is soaked up (should be about equal amounts).  Cook for about a minute.
3. Whisk in the milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly, for a minute until the bechamel thickens.
4. Mix in the green beans and spread in a baking dish.
5. Bake at 350 for ~20 minutes, then top with the fried onions and bake another 10-15 minutes, until sauce is bubbly and onions are toasted (but not brown!)

Corn casserole (also known as scalloped corn, corn pudding, and other names)
1 can creamed corn
1 can corn, drained
1/4 c. butter, melted
2 eggs
1 c. sour cream
1 box Jiffy corn bread mix
S (just a bit) &P
optional add-ins (dice or finely chop):
bell pepper
onions
pickled jalapenos, or a can of green chilis, drained
anything your heart desires

1. Mix together all ingredients
2. Bake at 350 30-40 minutes until a knife comes out cleanly.

Mashed potatoes with roasted garlic
potatoes
butter, cubed
cream
roasted garlic
generous S, some P

1. Peel potatoes if desired and cut into medium chunks (the night before if necessary--just keep completely covered in water)
2. Boil potatoes until fork-tender, then drain.
3. Return to the pot in which they were boiled (this will help them dry off a little) and add in butter, roasted garlic, and a splash or two of cream. S&P to taste.
4. Mash by hand, or if you prefer really smooth potatoes, with an electric hand-mixer.
5. You can also add softened cream cheese, herbs, & other seasonings.

Soft dinner rolls (adapted from several recipes around the web, but it's basically a lightly-enriched yeast dough that you roll into balls and bake in a 9x13 pan)
1 T. yeast
1/2 c. warm water
1 c. warm milk
2 T. sugar
2 T. melted butter or oil
1 t. salt
~4 c. flour

1. Combine water, milk, and sugar in a large bowl.  Sprinkle yeast on top and let sit for a couple minutes until it looks bubbly.
2. Stir in melted butter and salt.
3. Add in 3 cups of flour, then add flour in 1/4 to 1/2 cup increments until a soft but workable dough forms.
4. Cover and let rise until doubled, 20-30 minutes.
5. Flour a work surface and pat into a rectangle.  Cut rectangle into six strips (halve, then each half into thirds). Cut each strip into 4 pieces = 24 rolls.
6. Take each piece of dough and palm it, then roll against a surface til the edges are tucked under and it's nice and round.  Place in a greased 9x13 pan.  Repeat with remaining dough.
7. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise until doubled.
8. Bake at 400F for 20minutes until brown on top.  You can also brush them with melted butter before you bake them so they brown even better.

Pumpkin pie
I use the recipe on the can of Libby's pumpkin!  I think it calls for evaporated milk, eggs, pumpkin, spices, and sugar.  Very traditional.
No-roll pie crust from Allrecipes:
1.5 c. flour
1/2 c. oil
1/4 c. cold water
pinch salt
1-2 t. sugar

1. Mix pie crust ingredients together.  Press into the bottom and sides of the pie pan to an even thickness.
2. Pour in pumpkin pie filling and bake according to directions.

Ooey gooey brunch: Monkey Bread

Post-exams is always a daze, but especially after finals.  To celebrate being done (and to nurse our inevitable hangovers), some of my friends and I got together and made brunch on Friday morning.  At my house growing up, you can't have holiday brunch without Monkey Bread, also known as pull-apart bread, also known as the best breakfast treat ever.  My mom would make this every Christmas Eve because it was easy to just throw it in the oven while we opened presents.  Then, the warm, cinnamon-sugar smell would remind us that we were starving and we would cluster around the counter, sneaking pieces before they cooled and snacking on them loudly to cool them even as we gobbled them down.

My mom always made ours in this special pan--a white ceramic loaf pan with a little tray to turn it out onto after it baked.  She also used frozen roll dough cut into pieces and dipped them in butter, cinnamon, and sugar.  Since I like to bake bread from scratch (and since it's actually cheaper), I used the recipe found here at Eatin' on the Cheap to make Monkey Bread from scratch.

The recipe is not too complicated if you're familiar with yeast breads: the dough is enriched (milk for liquid, plus some melted butter and some sugar) and also contains some cinnamon.  The sugar mixture for coating contains cinnamon and nutmeg mixed with brown sugar, and then the bottom of the pan gets a mix of melted butter, brown sugar, and chopped walnuts.  Then it's just a matter of assembly (and patience)!

The dough has to be mixed, kneaded, and left to rise for about an hour before you can really start the rest of the recipe.

Get everything set up first: melted butter, sugar-spice mixture, and dough chunks.

The dough gets divided into quarters.  Each quarter is rolled into a log and then cut into 16 pieces.  (Here's a great way to practice your fractions if you're rusty.  I cut the log in half, then each half into halves, then each of those into four pieces.)

Roll a quarter of the dough into a log and cut it into 16 pieces.

The dipping part is definitely the messiest part.  I suggest having the sugar/spice bowl right next to the bundt pan so there's minimal sugar all over afterwards.  I also thought it was easier to plop the buttered dough piece into the bowl and scoop some sugar over it rather than actually rolling it around.

Dip the pieces in butter and then into the sugar-spice mixture.
Then arrange the pieces over the bottom of the bundt pan.

Repeat for all four quarters of the bread dough, layering as you go and smushing the dough as necessary to make it fit tightly in the pan.  Toward the end I ran out of sugar for rolling, so I just dipped the dough in butter and threw them in there (luckily the top ones turn into the bottom ones once you flip it).

Add more pieces in layers until you've used them all up, about 3-4 deep.
I ran out of sugar and spice at the end so these last few are just dipped in butter.

Now you can cover it and put the pan in the fridge overnight.  In the morning, take the pan out an hour before you want to bake it.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40-50 minutes (mine was perfect at 40 minutes), then let it cool for five minutes in the pan.  Don't let it cool too much longer than that, though, or else it will stick in the pan.  Put a plate or platter over the top of the bundt pan and flip the whole thing over and voila! You're ready to go.

Ooey, gooey, caramely goodness!

This was so delicious and really not complicated--totally worth it.  If you're pressed for time, frozen roll dough or (as per other recipes I saw on the internet) biscuit dough would probably work okay, too...but the extra oomph from the bread being cinnamony was pretty delicious.

Happy holidays!