The Bitten Word

Thanksgiving 2016: German Chocolate-Pecan Pie

Southern Living (November 2016)

If you're already thinking about your own Thanksgiving menu and you're starting to sweat at the thought of cooking all that food, we have some good news for you:

You can start cooking today. And you can start with pie. 

There's lots of advice about this online, but here's a shorthand guide for you when you're asking, "Can I make this pie in advance?"

• Nut pies: Make/bake the entire pie. Let it cool. Wrap it up tight. Freeze it. Move it to the fridge the night before the big meal -- revive it in the oven before serving. 

• Fruit pies: Make the crust and compile the pie. Wrap it up tight and freeze it. To bake it, you can either thaw the pie in the fridge OR put it directly from the freezer into the oven (it will take more time to bake, of course, if it's fully frozen). 

• Pie crusts: Make them and store them in the freezer, either in discs or rolled out into pie tins. 

We made 4 different pie recipes for our Fakesgiving (8 total pies). Six of them we made nearly a week ahead. Two were today's German Chocolate-Pecan Pie. Two were apple pies that we compiled and froze. The other four pies had components we could make ahead and freeze. 

The freezer is your friend when it comes to Thanksgiving planning. Know it. Embrace it. Start cooking ahead of time. 

Also your friend: This recipe for German Chocolate-Pecan Pie, which was our favorite dessert we made this Fakesgiving. 

Thanksgiving 2015: Cherry Spice Cake Trifle

Southern Living (November 2015)

  

Clay: “Do we have a trifle bowl?”

Zach: “Have you met us? Of course we have a trifle bowl!”

And that's all it took for this Cherry Spice Cake Trifle to make it onto our Fakesgiving menu. 

This is the kind of dessert you want to tell your guests that it didn't turn out, so you can stash it in the fridge and then eat it all yourself the next day.  

It's the kind of dessert you want to crawl inside. 

It's the kind of dessert you want at your Thanksgiving table. 

The 2015 Thanksgiving Index: All This Year's Food Magazine Recipes in One Handy Place

220 Thanksgiving Recipes from 10 Leading Food Magazines

Yesterday, we were all about the trends, sharing what's in and what's out for this year's Thanksgiving feast.

Today, it's all about the recipes. Below, we've categorized all 220 recipes from the 10 magazines we're tracking this year.

Of course, the November issues of these magazines feature many more recipes than this -- in order to make this list, the recipe had to be part of an explicit feature about Thanksgiving. (If a recipe doesn't have a hyperlink, it means it isn't yet available online.) 

Explore the list and share your thoughts: What sounds amazing? What sounds too wacky for your table? What might you try for this year's feast? Let us know in the comments -- and happy cooking! 

 

TURKEYS

Porchetta-Style Roast Turkey Breast (Bon Appétit)
Barbecue Spice–Brined Grilled Turkey (Bon Appétit)
Glazed and Lacquered Roast Turkey (Bon Appétit)
Two-Hour Turkey with Gravy (Cook's Country)
Applewood-Smoked Turkey  (Cooking Light)
Brown Sugar–Cured Turkey with Apple-Bourbon Gravy  (Cooking Light)
Rosemary-Orange Roast Turkey  (Cooking Light)
Citrus-Herb Roast Turkey & Gravy (Fine Cooking)
Chipotle-Butter Turkey (Food & Wine)
Citrus-and-Butter Turkey (Food & Wine)
Porchetta-Spiced Turkey with Pan Gravy (Food & Wine)
Roast Turkey with Polenta Stuffing (Food & Wine)
Soy-and-Sesame Turkey (Food & Wine)
Maple-Whiskey Turkey (Food Network)
Classic Roast Turkey (Food Network)
Lemon-Pepper Turkey with Bacon Gravy (Food Network)
Southwestern Turkey with Chipotle Gravy (Food Network) 
Herbed Turkey (Martha Stewart Living)
Molasses-and-Cider-Glazed Turkey (Martha Stewart Living)
Tamarind-Glazed Roast Turkey (Saveur)
Slow Smoked and Spice-Brined Turkey (Saveur)
Dry-Brined-and-Marinated Smoked Turkey (Southern Living) 

 

GRAVY

Gravy-Braised Turkey Legs with Cipolline Onions (Bon Appétit)
Classic Turkey Gravy with Thyme (Bon Appétit)
Maple-Whiskey Gravy (Food Network)
Classic Gravy (Food Network) 
Make-Ahead Turkey Gravy  (Cooking Light)
Make-Ahead Gravy (Southern Living) 

 

 

Thanksgiving 2013: Pear-Rosemary Pie with Cheddar Crust

Southern Living (November 2013)

Though it's not a new trend for Thanksgiving, pears are an abundant ingredient in this year's Thanksgiving dishes. And that certainly held true at our house. We made three dishes that used pear for our Fakesgiving. 

We were excited by the idea of a Pear and Rosemary Pie, but we were sold by the idea of a Pear and Rosemary Pie with a Cheddar Crust. 

Peanut-Basil Relish

Southern Living (July 2013)

We haven't been grilling as much this summer as we wish.

Normally this time of year, we cook dinner on the grill most every night. But this year, for whatever reason -- busyness, bugginess -- we just aren't firing up the grill as much.

One definite reason we've scaled back is because we've been trying to eat a bit more healthfully this summer. We've cut back on a lot of what used to be grilling standards for us -- steak, burgers, sausage. We're eating more fish (which just isn't worth the hassle to grill as far as we're concerned) and more lean proteins like chicken and turkey and, occasionally, pork chops.

And when you grill things like chicken, turkey and pork chops, it can be easy to fall into a rut.

That's why recipes like this Peanut-Basil Relish are a godsend.

Creamy Onion Puree: A Reliable Stand-in For Mashed Potatoes?

Southern Living (May 2013)

Truth be told, it's probably been years since we had mashed potatoes.

Not only are they on the unhealthy, carb-heavy end of the spectrum, we just don't like them that much. Oh sure, we like butter, salt and gravy just as much as the next guys. But the actual potatoes? Eh.

So when we saw this recipe in Southern Living, we were intrigued -- and skeptical. Could an onion puree really be an improvement on mashed potatoes?

At first, we assumed this was meant as a healthier alternative to potatoes, but that isn't the intention here. The puree has plenty of fat to give it flavor -- there's three tablespoons of butter and one tablespoon of olive oil. Thyme is also in the mix for additional flavor.

Turns out, it takes a whole lot of onions to get four small servings of Onion Puree. The recipe calls for six large onions. Slicing them, we thought that surely this would make a huge bowl of pureed onions. But then they cook down and down and down, into a relatively small side dish. 

But a side dish we loved. The finished dish is buttery and delicious, with a wonderful, rich flavor that's so much deeper and more interesting than plain ol' mashed potatoes. Since sweet onions are used, the onion flavor is not overpowering. In fact it's very smooth, balanced by the herbs and fat. 

Want to mix up your mashed potato routine?

Ditch the taters and reach for the onions. 

Sparkling Rum Punch

Southern Living (December 2012)

A couple days ago, we mentioned that it's the season for sweets.

That's true, but it's also the season of the champagne toast. Between the first raising of your glass at Thanksgiving dinner and the last mimosa toast on New Year's Day morning, there's enough "cheersing" going on to give you tennis elbow.

Here's a fun sparkling wine cocktail to mix things up. It's an unexpected combination of rum, orange and sparkling wine. 

Rum and orange juice sounds like something a pre-motherhood Snooki would've drunk with breakfast. But rum, orange juice and sparkling wine? That, friends, is a classy combination. 

This sparkling rum punch is a festive, sweet concoction, just the sort of thing you want to be able to whip up on a whim during the holidays when friends are coming by.

Cheers! 

Cajun Chicken Cassoulet

Southern Living (December 2012)

Playwrights often use the metaphor of Chekhov's gun: If you're going to introduce a gun in the first act, it'd better be fired by the end of the play. 

The same goes for recipe titles. In this case, if you're going to use the word "Cajun," there'd better be a pay-off in terms of spice.

This Cajun Chicken Cassoulet simply doesn't have enough spice. But we'll get to that in a moment.

Thanksgiving 2012 Recipe Index: What the Food Magazines Are Recommending

Now that you're all set on the Thanksgiving trends for 2012, it's time to start planning your menu in earnest. 

As we've done for the past few years, we've gathered all the different Thanksgiving recipes from several different food magazines. This year's index features a full 239 recipes from 11 food magazines: Bon Appetit, Cook's Illustrated, Cooking Light, Everyday Food, Fine Cooking, Food & Wine, Food Network Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Southern Living and Whole Living. And believe us, they are absolutely packed with great ideas for Thanksgiving. 

We hosted our annual Fakesgiving this past Sunday. As you might remember, that's our yearly meal where we invite a bunch of friends to test-drive several Thanksgiving recipes. This year we had 20 friends and family to sample 19 different dishes, from a pre-dinner snack all the way through to dessert. We'll be posting about the dishes we tried over the next three weeks, in the run-up to Turkey Day.

So dig into our Thanksgiving 2012 Recipe Index! But first, we'll share a few photos from our Fakesgiving meal.

Beef-and-Watermelon Stir-fry

Southern Living (August 2012) 

Cooking with watermelon is a new idea for us. We're obsessed with it raw, or in a salad, or in a cocktail. But in a stir-fry? When we spied the beautiful photo of this dish in the most recent Southern Living, we were instantly a bit dubious. Would the watermelon hold up against the beef, snow peas and other more traditional stir-fry components? Would the flavors work?

We had to try it for ourselves.