Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Holiday Help

Ten Things to Help With the Holidays

1. Butterball Help: If those of you in the U.S. need any advice on thawing, dressing or cooking your holiday turkey, call the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line at 1-800-BUTTERBALL by phone, or e-mail BBTurkeyCo@aol.com (e-mail response may take 24 to 48 hours.)

2. Grace or Thanks: Here's a short and simple prayer to say before your holiday meal: Bless us, O Lord, for these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Help us to be mindful of all our blessings, and the needs of those who have less. Amen. If you don't say grace at meals, you can ask everyone at the table to name something for which they're thankful, and why.

3. Nuking the Potatoes: If you're preparing microwavable mashed potatoes to save cooking and stovetop time, but want them to taste a bit more homemade, mix in 1/4 cup of milk, 1 tbsp. butter or margarine and (optional) 1/2 tsp. of black pepper per 24 ozs. of potatoes before you heat them.

4. Occupy the Kids: (You'll need ingredients to make a batch of cupcakes, some tubs of ready-to-use frosting, and shakers of sprinkles or tubes of gel frosting.) This is a great way to let even the youngest kid contribute something to the feast. Make your favorite recipe of cupcakes the night before your holiday, but don't frost or decorate them. While you're cooking the next day, give the kids the cupcakes, frostings and decorations, and let them at it. If grandparents need something to do, they can supervise. This is also a nice dessert alternative for the kids, who might not like pumpkin pie or whatever you've got planned for the grownups.

5. Painless Dessert: People ask me for this recipe every holiday season. It's sinfully rich fudge for those of us who can't be trusted with a candy thermometer.

PBW's Famous No-Brainer Fudge

3 cups Nestle Toll House semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 can 14 oz. sweet condensed milk
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
dash of salt
[optional add-ins: chopped nuts, mini marshmallows, raisins, M&Ms etc.]

Put morsels, milk, extract and salt in a sauce pan and melt over low heat. Stir frequently to blend. When it looks like fudge -- after about 5 to 10 minutes -- remove from heat, stir in your favorite chopped nuts, marshmallows, M&Ms or whatever. Pour into pan (I use an 8" pie pan), spread out, cover with foil or plastic wrap and put in refrigerator. Chill for two hours, take out, cut into squares, enjoy.

Note on fancy toppings: Before you put in the fridge, you can also top the fudge with coconut, maraschino cherries, pecan halves etc.

6. Punch with Pow: Freeze a 46 oz. can of unsweetened pineapple juice. When time to serve, place the frozen block of juice in punch bowl and pour black cherry soda over it until you fill the bowl (use as much soda as your guest count demands; we usually go through about 4 liters of soda at mid-size gatherings.) If you want a fancier look, freeze the pineapple juice in shaped ice cube trays or a ring-shaped mold.

7. Quickie Centerpiece: Fill your favorite serving bowl or basket with apples, oranges, grapes or other fresh fruit you have around the house, and then place unshelled walnuts in some of the spaces between the fruit. If you don't have walnuts, try short sprigs of evergreen or pine, autumn leaves or small bunches of fresh parsley.

8. Thanks in Return: If you're having your holiday feast at someone else's place and would like to do something nice for your hosts, give them a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant. After all the cooking they've done, it will be much appreciated.

9. Waking up the Stuffing: If you make traditional bread/celery/seasoning-type stuffing and want to liven it up a little, chop a medium onion, sautee it in a little margarine and add it to the mix. For more intense flavor, don't sautee the onion. Feeling more adventurous? Try adding one of the following to your basic stuffing recipe: chopped apples or water chestnuts (adds sweetness and crispness) dried cranberries (these are wonderful), crushed garlic, cooked sausage, or sliced mushrooms.

10. Ziplocks to the Rescue: If your fridge space is limited, try saving leftovers in ziplock bags versus Tupperware or plastic containers (bags seal just as well but are more flexible than rigid containers.)

12 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:38 AM

    Ooh, dried cranberries or apples in the stuffing? yum. And I'll have to give that fudge recipe a shot.

    I wanted to point out, since I know Holly and a number of other writers out there are prone to migraine, that turkey is loaded with MSG, landing a lot of migraineurs in the hospital right after Thanksgiving. If you are a migraine sufferer and sensitive to MSG, forgo the turkey! My family has been getting on quite well with roast beef for Thanksgiving the past few years. We don't miss it much, and we haven't missed Dad's trips to the ER, either.

    Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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  2. Mmmmm, our thanksgiving was last month, but I'm hungry all over again!
    For the kids, at my daughter's birthday we did the cupcake thing (went over way cool), but also added stars, butterflies, choc chips and such from the bulk store as decorations.
    Another suggestion for the stuffing is mandarin oranges. The canned ones are fine, as they mix into the blend, so you don't need to peel actual oranges, but just a small amount can give the stuffing some zest.
    Happy Thanksgiving to those in the USA!

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  3. Two things:

    First, mashed potatoes aren't really all that time-consuming. Ok, they are if you count the peeling, but you can do that ahead of time and leave the potatoes in cold water. Boiled and mashed with butter, salt, and whole milk, they're wonderful, so take the extra few minutes to make them. If you want to make them really special, wrap 8-10 cloves of garlic in aluminum foil and throw them into the oven with the turkey for a half hour or so. Then take them out and mash them into the potatoes. Delicious.

    Second, PBW's fudge is dead easy, and delicious. Highly recommended.

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  4. Anonymous8:34 AM

    You mean there's stuffing that doesn't have onion in? I hate the stuff, but it's always in our stuffing.

    And no Thanksgiving here. However, we always say thank you to the people/animals/veges etc that make up or brought us our meals.


    Wolverine

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  5. Have a safe and pleasant holiday!

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  6. Anonymous10:55 AM

    Here's a peppy version of grace my wife taught me:

    Rub a dub, dub
    Thanks for the grub
    Yeah, God!

    -Happy Thanksgiving,
    Michael Snell

    ReplyDelete
  7. Imagine my surprise to see our grace before meals posted here and our tradition of having everyone say what they are thankful for.

    Of course if you have a large group (my family is huge) it's good to start the thanks when the turkey first comes out and is sitting before carving otherwise all the food gets cold.

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  8. To all those who celebrate--happy thanksgiving.

    My favorite turkey cooking resource:

    www.turkeyhelp.com

    Run by the folks at Cooks Illustrated, the only cooking magazine subscription I keep these days. They're like consumer reports for cooking--no advertisements. (And no, I don't have any commercial ties to them!)

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  9. PBW's Famous No-Brainer Fudge

    3 cups Nestle Toll House semi-sweet chocolate morsels
    1 can 14 oz. sweet condensed milk
    1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
    dash of salt
    [optional add-ins: chopped nuts, mini marshmallows, raisins, M&Ms etc.]


    IF you're truly lazy, Eagle Brand now has a fudge kit with all those ingredients, even a one-use pan. My friend made it and it's delicious.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous7:53 PM

    Pas question! Je suis au regime! :)

    Je te parle demain, merci beaucoup.

    ~ ~
    W W
    l
    \-M-/

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  11. Anonymous8:33 PM

    I will second Dean on the fudge recipe, it is to die for. I add some instant coffee granules to mine during the heating stage to make it mocha-flavoured.

    PBW, words are never enough, but from me and my family: thank you.

    L.

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  12. Thanks for the tips and I'll try the fudge.

    ReplyDelete

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