The Bitten Word

Thanksgiving 2009: Vegan Chocolate Cheesecake

Gourmet (November 2009)

Loyal Bitten Word readers are forgiven if they think they've stumbled onto the wrong food blog.

Yes, it's true that we're more likely to serve a Pork Chocolate Cheesecake than a vegan one.

But for some reason we were really drawn to this Vegan Chocolate Cheesecake in the final issue of Gourmet.

It looked simultaneously luscious and light, decadent but not too heavy. In short, it looked like an ideal Thanksgiving dessert.

Thanksgiving 2009: Cream Gravy

Gourmet (November 2009)

We absolutely loved our spatchcocked turkey! The skin was crispy, the meat was moist and flavorful.

But let's be honest. For many people, the Thanksgiving turkey is nothing more than a delivery vehicle for gravy.

We wanted a great, classic gravy to go with our turkey, and we love the one we found, this Cream Gravy from Gourmet.

Thanksgiving 2009: Roast Spatchcocked Turkey

Martha Stewart Living (November 2009)

We have a love/hate relationship with Thanksgiving turkey. On the one hand, a golden-skinned roast turkey is the classic centerpiece of the Thanksgiving dinner. Done right, the meat is tender and juicy, the skin perfectly crisp.

But getting the bird on the table can be so much work! Do you brine it ahead of time or not? If you do brine, should you do a wet brine or a dry brine? Should you rub the skin with butter? Should you stuff the bird or cook the stuffing separately? Should you baste it while it's roasting?

And then, on the day of the big dinner, the bird sits there, taking up the majority of your oven space for three hours while the clock ticks closer to dinnertime.

Well, forget all that!

Reader, we'd like to have a word with you. Just one word, actually. This word is your key to a Thanksgiving turkey that takes just 70 minutes (!) from start to finish. No brining, no stuffing, no nothing.

That word is "spatchcocking."

Thanksgiving 2009: Scarlet Carrot Soup

Gourmet (November 2009)

 
Thumbing through the final issue of Gourmet [moment of silence], we were blown away by one of the first photos we saw, which was of this Scarlet Carrot Soup. Deeply red and topped by fried carrot strips, we knew it would make a dramatic start to any Thanksgiving meal.

But why is the soup so red?  Is it a special variety of carrots?  Food coloring?  Code Red Mountain Dew? 

Thanksgiving 2009: Fall Harvest Salad

Food & Wine (November 2009)

So we've begun our Thanksgiving "auditions," trying out recipes for the big day.

We were drawn to this Fall Harvest Salad for a two main reasons. First -- obviously -- it sounded amazing: fresh autumn greens, roasted butternut squash, pumpkin seeds, pecans. What's not to love?

Second, though, this salad was kind of a redux for us. A second chance.

Thanksgiving Guide 2009: What the Food Magazines Are Recommending

172 Recipes From 9 Leading Food Magazines

 

Thanksgiving is food magazines' time to shine. In years past, many of the food mags we read have used their November issues to really push the limits with innovative spins on Thanksgiving faves.

Sure, there are usually plenty of approachable standbys. But the classics usually sit alongside some really envelope-pushing ideas: Throw a Thanksgiving clambake! How about a Pacific Rim-fusion dinner? Truffle-laden turkey! Indian-spiced sweet potato gnocchi!! Vegan French-Vietnamese gluten-free stuffing!!!

Not so this year. From the looks of this year's crop of Thanksgiving food mags, 2009 is all about simplicity and basic, standard dishes. It's the Great Recession, and everybody just wants a big ol' piece of pumpkin pie.

Just look at what the magazines call out from the newsstands:

Martha Stewart Living: "Thanksgiving, simple and sensational"

Fine Cooking: "All the classics made easy"

Food Network: "Easy Thanksgiving"

Bon Appétit: "Thanksgiving made easy"

Everyday Food: "A Thanksgiving menu that's easy to make"

We have nine November issues in front of us, and nearly all of them are focused on "traditional" menus that are very straightforward.

The food magazines may have stuck to the classics this year, but that doesn't mean the options are limited. In the nine magazines we have, there are, in fact, 172 Thanksgiving recipes.

All those options can leave you more than a little stressed out. It's all too easy to get wrapped up in the idea that Thanksgiving has to be perfect and if you don't select the right stuffing recipe, your mother-in-law will break into tears at the table.

But fear not!  We've cataloged all 172 options below so that you, dear reader, can browse this year's recipes and make some selections for yourself. Over the next three weeks, we're going to be cooking and writing as many recipes as we can fit in. We'll post our photos and let you know how they turn out.

And as you're gearing up for the holiday, if you have questions, post them here and we'll do our best to answer them.

Okay, ready for the recipes?

Lamb Chops with Mustard-Herb Crust

Everyday Food (November 2009)

 

Sometimes we love poring over a complicated recipe and sourcing exotic, hard-to-fine spices or special cuts of meat. Sometimes we really enjoy spending a lazy afternoon in the kitchen, slowly cajoling ingredients to join in a triumphant symphony of flavors.

Other times, we just wanna eat.

Enter these Lamb Chops with Mustard-Herb Crust. Simple, pleasing and lightning-fast -- it took us longer to pull together a simple green salad than to cook these chops.

The Leftovers | Interesting Stuff from October Food Magazines

Here are some items we liked from October's magazines that weren't necessarily recipe-related. Previous "Leftovers" can be found here.

Us in Portland, Maine, this summer.

Bon Appétit profiles Portland, Maine in the magazine's annual round-up of America's Foodiest Small Towns.  We were excited to see the article, because we visited Portland in August. It's a beautiful city, filled with fantastic food. Most memorably, we had dinner at Fore Street, a restaurant serving mostly locally sourced ingredients. It was one of the most memorable meals we've had this year. We also loved J's Oyster, where they make an amazing Bloody Mary. Much of the feature is available online.

Saveur, in looking at food in Mississippi, mentions Craig Claiborne's Southern Cooking, originally published in 1987. We knew very little about Claiborne, a former restaurant critic of the New York Times, until we read Gael Greene's memoir Insatiable earlier this summer.  We loved Greene's book, in which Claiborne makes several appearances.

A guest on The Splendid Table recently mentioned Claiborne's autobiography, A Feast Made for Laughter. It appears to be out of print, but we're going to track down a copy and read it this winter. 

We geeked out over this month's Martha Stewart Living feature on vintage cast-iron pans.

They're beautiful and come in an astounding number of shapes. The feature is definitely worth seeking out. A short version is available online.

We haven't yet mastered how to make fancy edges on pie crust, but Fine Cooking has inspired us to try with their feature "How to Make Decorative Pie Crust," including a beautiful looking "wheat edge."

The magazine has a video online that shows you the technique.

Spiced Pumpkin, Lentil, and Goat Cheese Salad

Bon Appétit (October 2009)

 
We needed a pumpkin last night to make this recipe, so we went to pick one up at our local supermarket. 

Unfortunately, there were only two kinds of pumpkins left: massive orbs too heavy to carry home and daintier gourds already decorated for Halloween.

So we strode up to counter with our pumpkin, which was painted with a cute clown face and topped with a jaunty, bright red firefighter hat. 

The conversation went something like this:

Checker:  "Oh that's a nice pumpkin."

Us:  "Thank you."

Checker: "You going to put it on your porch?"

Us: "Uh, no, actually we're going to cook it."

Checker (looking aghast):  "YOU'RE GOING TO WHAT?!"

Us: "We're going to cook it for a dish that we're making."

Checker: "Why would you DO THAT?"

Us (mumbling): "For a salad we're making."

And that is what we did.

Pumpkin, lentils and goat cheese sounded, to us, like the perfect combination for an autumn salad. And with Halloween only days away, we thought that this sounded like a great way to use un-massacred pumpkins rather than throwing them away.

Slow-Baked Honeycrisp Apples

Bon Appétit (October 2009)

 

We were in the mood for something warm, sweet and full of fall flavors.  And there is almost nothing we like more in autumn than a fresh Honeycrisp apple.

So we loved the idea of these Slow-Baked Honeycrisp Apples. Cozy, individual ramekins filled with soft apples scented with ginger and coriander, brightened by citrus -- what's not to love?

And don't they look inviting in this photo?  Don't they look like just the thing to warm you on a damp autumn evening?

Well, guess what, kids? Chicanery!