Personally, I made sweet potato casserole, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and mashed potatoes from scratch the day of the meal, in addition to the turkey, broccoli and putting together a salad. It was much easier and quicker than I expected and everything tasted delicious!
Cooking with whole, unprocessed foods can be easier than you think. You just need to do a little extra prep and research before making them for the first time.
I love Eatingwell.com and wholefoods.com and sometimes foodnetwork.com for recipes.
For stuffing I made my boss's tried and true recipe:
- I purchased a loaf of bread from TJ's a few days before Turkey Day.
- The day of the meal, I cut it into squares.
- Then I spread the squares on a sheet pan and cooked them for about 10 minutes while the turkey was cooking. (I'm not sure of the exact time and I was using convection so results may not be the same for you....I just kept checking on them until they were slightly brown and crispy.)
- Transfer cubes to a baking dish.
- Chop an onion and a few celery stalks and saute them for a few minutes using a tablespoon of butter.
- Pour these items and the melted butter over the bread cubes.
- Finely chop a few herbs and sprinkle them into the cube mixture. Almost any herbs will do. I prefer fresh and I had rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley on hand. (No I wasn't going to Scarborough Fair.) But dried ones will work too.
- Pour broth or stock over the cubes and gently mix just to moisten. I used about a half a cup. Again, this is something you just have to guess and check. So add a little at a time until it's at the consistency you like.
- Finally, add a can or 1 cup of fresh cranberry sauce. I used canned and saved the fresh stuff for serving by itself. You can vary the amount of this you add as well. Just be sure to use enough to serve as a binder for the dish but not so that its all soaked and bright red.
- Put the baking dish in the oven and bake until crispy on the top. Yet again, I cannot tell you how long or at what temp since I was using a convection oven. (Does anyone else have one too?) I would suggest about 15 minutes at 350 degrees. But play around with it.
Did you make a healthy version or a from scratch version of a holiday favorite?
I can personally state the healthy, unprocessed, from scratch recipes were delicious! Thanks for all your efforts! It was good!
ReplyDeleteHere's a question for ya...super foods. what are they and how much should we eat per day/month? I recenlty caught a few minutes of some health show on TV which basically went over that it's not necessarily the calorie content of foods that contribute to health adn weight gain, but also the hormonal impacts (some reduce the feeling of hunger, some induce it, etc). Thoughts?
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