Thanksgiving Menu!

Appetizer:
Baked Brie with Apple Butter

Main Course:
Chicken (I hate turkey) with apple and cranberries

Side dishes:
Cranberry sauce (the one from a can, I love it)
Sweet potatoes
Stuffing
Confetti Green Beans

Dessert:
Noodle kugel with apple pie filling
Jello salad
Blackberry pie
Pumpkin pie

Thanksgiving recipe #3 - Confetti Green Beans

Day three of my Thanksgiving recipe week brings you Confetti Green Beans - one of my favorite new vegetable dishes. It is really easy to make, looks festive, and tastes delicious. Since this one has no set measurements, judge for yourself how much of everything you need, based on how many people you are cooking for.

Confetti Green Beans

Green beans
Sliced almonds
dried cranberries
vegetable oil
boiling water

Have enough beans for the number of people you are cooking for - half a handful per person works well.

A tablespoonful of dried cranberries per handful of beans is a roughly the right amount - you don't want the cranberries to overpower the beans, but you want them noticeable, for both taste and color. The same goes for the sliced almonds. Just cover the cranberries in some boiling water for about 5 minutes, enough to get them soft.

Saute the green beans in oil for a few minutes, until they turn a bright, vibrant green. Pour in the water and cranberries, saute a few more minutes. Add the almonds, cook for another 30 seconds, and remove from heat.

Serve as soon as possible.

Thanksgiving recipe #2 - Noodle Kugel

Posting the recipe for The Pie - as well as checking the Amazon.com Black Friday deals page every hour - has given me the idea of posting a new recipe every day this week, based on my planned menu for Thanksgiving.

I have already posted the recipe for the Baked Brie and Apple Butter I plan on making as an appetizer, so here is another dessert recipe. I am not, incidentally, making The Pie this year. I may do so for Christmas, but four people just isn't enough to consume that monstrosity.

Noodle Kugel

1lb medium egg noodles
2/3 C water drained from noodles (saved)
6 eggs (1 1/2 C egg beaters)
¼ lb margarine
16oz applesauce or apple pie filling (I am using an apple cranberry pie filling from Trader Joe's)
½ C sugar
1 t vanilla
Cinnamon
1 C white raisins, cherries or dried cranberries (optional)

Boil noodles, drain and reserve 2/3 C water. Mix margarine with drained noodles and water. Add eggs, applesauce or pie filling, sugar, cinnamon & vanilla. Add raisins if desired.

Grease 9x13”pan. Add noodles, sprinkle top with mixture of cinnamon and sugar.

Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees.

In advance, a Thanksgiving treat - The Pie!

Since Jocelyn asked so nicely, here is, just in time for Thanksgiving, the greatest apple pie recipe in the world. This was originally called the Special Apple Pie, but since then, it has become so infamous that if you say ‘The Pie’ in a serious tone, all of my family and friends will understand what is meant. This pie is made only at Thanksgiving, because one’s heart can only take this kind of abuse once a year. But it is sooo worth it.

Special Apple Pie, or, The Pie (Deep Dish)

Crust

1 ¾ c. all purpose flour
¼ c. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
½ t. salt
½ c. plus 2 T. butter (1 ¼ sticks)

For crust, combine flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt in medium bowl. Cut in butter using pastry blender (also called 'a fork') until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add water, toss gently with fork until evenly moistened. Gather dough into a ball and transfer to lightly floured board. Roll into a circle larger than a deep 10” pie plate. Ease pastry into plate and flute a high edge. Set aside.

As documented in an earlier post, crusts are easier said than done. If you don't have a lot of time, or simply don't want the rise in blood pressure, just get a pie crust from the store. HOWEVER, bear in mind that this recipe is for a DEEP DISH pie, so you will need TWO regular sized pie crusts for the same amount of filling as one deep dish crust.

*Because someone found this last bit of direction confusing: if you do not make a crust, and instead buy two normal-sized crusts, this will result in two pies. You will not somehow mold the two crusts together, or stack them, or who knows what else - you will simply make the filling and put it in the two separate pie crusts. Therefor, two pies.*

Filling

8 McIntosh apples, peeled, cored and sliced (McIntosh are the best, but an hard, tart baking apples will do)
1 2/3 c. sour cream
1 c. sugar
1/3 c. all purpose flour
1 egg
2 t. vanilla
½ t. salt

For filling, preheat oven to 450 degrees.

A quick note on slicing apples:

In order for apples to bake well, they must be relatively thin. Rather than cutting wedges, or using an apple slicer, it is easier to peel the apple, and cut slices off the sides. The pieces will naturally all be different shapes - the first few will be circles off the sides, then more rectangular in shape - and this will also help them fit better within the pie crust.

Combine apples, sour cream, sugar, flour, egg, vanilla and salt in a large bowl and mix well.

Spoon into crust.

Bake 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking until filling is slightly puffed and golden brown, about 40 minutes longer. (If edges of crust brown too quickly, cover with strips of foil.)

As you can see in that last photo, I used two different types of crust. On the left is a Graham Cracker crust, on the right is a Pillsbury refrigerated crust. The latter worked far better for this type of pie.

Topping

1 c. chopped walnuts
½ c. all purpose flour
1/3 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 T. cinnamon
½ c. butter (1 stick), room temperature

For topping, combine walnuts, flour, sugars and cinnamon and mix well. Blend in butter until mixture is crumbly.

Spoon over pie and bake 15 minutes more.

This is one of my favorite recipes, and I love introducing it to new people. Let me know if you make it, and how it turned out. Bon appetit and Happy Thanksgiving!