viva

Carrot Top - you could call them by Hobbit names... I always have an 11 AM snack so I can eat a later lunch... it's my "elevenses".

I second the Buffalo Bleu Krinkle Cut and the Spicy Thai varieties from Kettle. I have not seen the Island Jerk flavor out yet. Along the lines of this awesome article from The Onion: <Potato Chip Connoisseur>, my sister and I conducted a "Chip Tasting" to compare the latest Kettle varieties (Buffalo Bleu, NY Cheddar, Cheddar-Beer, and Spicy Thai), as well as the new Blazin' Buffalo Ranch Dorito flavor. I believe the Buffalo Bleu beat out the competition due to the superior crunch of the Krinkle-Cut variety. My sister favored the creamy finish of the Blazin' Buffalo Ranch Doritos. She is, of course, incorrect. This is, of course, possibly a rationale for the weight-loss plateau that I reported in the WW thread.

Out of a controversial thread, these two stand out for me: and Grandma and Grandpa's dining out involved the HoJo Tuesday Night all-you-can-eat rubbery fried clams, greasy fried frog legs at Bill Knapp's, and numerous inquiries into my unmarried status. None of these things were pleasant. I would trade anything in the world for one more dinner with them.

Repulsed by peanut butter? Heathens. As such, I add the PB&J to my top 5 (if Elvis had a variation on it, it must be American). Fried Chicken Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich Barbecue Hamburgers Apple Pie

Required: Greasy spoon diner. Eggs scrambled with cheese. Side of bacon (not too crisp). Make a sandwich out of the eggs and bacon on heavily buttered toast (preferably buttered by the grill guy with his little mop-o'-liquid-butter). Side of french fries, loaded with salt. Diet coke. After: nap on the couch. Glorious.

Roux cubes! Wow, that's a really interesting idea. I'll need to try that sometime.

Thanks to this thread I've gotten hooked on Total 0% for breakfast with some chopped pecans and dried apricots, and maybe a little honey. It's a tasty and filling breakfast that fits well into my low-cal eating plan for the new year... Also been using it as a marinade for skinless chicken pieces - mixed with paprika and lemon and garlic. Tasty there as well! Last but not least, I've also used it as a substitute for full-fat sour cream - fat free sour cream just doesn't have the same thick, creamy consistency.

This is our family recipe - we also beat the cream and fold in - guess we like our eggnog fluffy. And for those who like their eggnog strong, this one also includes all three cognac, bourbon and rum. 12 eggs, separated 1½ cup superfine sugar 1 qt whole milk 1½ qt heavy cream 2½ cups bourbon (Knob Creek usually) ¾ cup dark rum (Myers) ¼ cup cognac (usually end up using something like Meukow although Dad usually groans at the expense) Freshly grated nutmeg Beat egg yolks until thick & pale yellow. Gradually add sugar. Beat in milk & 1 qt cream (with a whisk). Add bourbon, rum, & cognac. Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into eggnog. Whip remaining heavy cream until stiff & fold in. Sprinkle with nutmeg.

Crudo is nice with different salts and olive oils.

I dunno - homemade beef pot pies were a very big part of Grandma's meal plans when I was a kid. (Just because they were homemade does not mean they were good - I would have killed for a frozen one as a kid. But Grandma's horrific cooking is a story for another time.) And we usually have homemade turkey pot pies after Thanksgiving (now that Grandma no longer cooks, these are actually tasty). I make chicken pot pies fairly regularly. Maybe my family is a pot-pie-loving minority? If so, that makes me happy. BUT: I agree with the premise that to me, even as an American meat-pie aficionado, "pie" refers to a fruit/sweet pie, and "pot pie" is the meat/savory kind.

The empanadas sound like a great idea! I think the mincemeat is going to be one of those things I will always have a few jars of in the cupboard. You and MeeMaw are wonderful for sharing it. The cream cheese pastry dough is an easy one - it's just Rose Levy Berenbaum's Flaky Cream Cheese Pie Crust from Pie & Pastry Bible. It's one of those pie doughs that I always have a disk of in the freezer. Although I bet the mincemeat would go nicely with a lard/butter crust too. Topic? Saveur had a nice black cake recipe this month that I'm thinking of trying next year. I think it's funny how all the magazines publish their fruitcake recipes in December, when really you need to make them a couple of months earlier!!

I like peanut butter and bacon. ← I had a hamburger recently with peanut butter, sour plum jam, and bacon. It was freaking fantastic. The peanut butter oozed into the burger, the bacon provided the salty, the jam the sweet. Needless to say, I didn't require any additional food for about a day after partaking.

Of the 25+ desserts that I served on Thanksgiving, the only one that was saved from the post-Thanksgiving purge was MeeMaw's Pork Mincemeat Cake. High praise! I did serve it this year brushed with a thin sugar & rum glaze. Also I made Mincemeat Cookies with the leftover mincemeat from the cake, mixed with eggs, more bourbon & rum, and dark Karo, baked in little tart forms on a cream-cheese pie dough. Very popular as well - the pork content was not disclosed.

I have also made the Concorde and my mousse definitely did not look curdled. I will say that I made the Concorde in advance and froze it, which softened the meringue considerably (which the recipe indicates is better) - I think I might have preferred it freshly made with more of a contrast between the crunchy meringue and the mousse. Also would up covering it with a poured ganache and sticking the little meringue pipes on the ganache. I doubled the meringue amount (made a chocolate version for the layers and a plain for decorating) because (a) I suck at piping meringue and (b) I wanted hella amounts of decorative pipes on top. Last but not least, I made the Pave - and I cannot begin to describe how much I loved it.

We made a pomegranate lacquered turkey this year - recipe called for fresh pom juice, good turkey stock, and red currant jelly (for the lacquer effect, I suppose) - we added to the flavor by rubbing a butter mixture under the turkey skin by blending together butter, fresh pom juice, orange zest, kosher salt, roasted garlic and a little cayenne/chipotle pepper for some kick. Unfortunately I made the butter whilst drinking a sidecar or two, so I have no idea what the proportions were - we just mixed stuff in until the butter "tasted good". The turkey was a beautiful dark glossy red, and the butter under the skin gave it good flavor. Made a kick-ass gravy from the drippings.

Someone else made the banana bread pudding, and someone else baked the cookies. Otherwise, I've been in a baking frenzy for the last 6 weeks. The nice part for me was that, since I had made so many, I got to taste as I went along, so there wasn't as much need to indulge on Turkey Day itself. PH's Pave and the Apple Prune tart (with a lard crust) were my favorites.

Around these parts, we eat dinner at 1:00 PM, then football and naps, a dessert "meal" around 6-7 PM, followed by a movie and turkey sandwiches. This allows for maximum desserts. We had: Italian Cream Cake with Coconut Maple Pear Spice Cake Golden Pumpkin & Apricot Cakes PH's Concorde Meringue Chocolate Cake PH's Pave Chocolate Caramel Cakes Pork Mincemeat Cake with Vanilla Armagnac Sauce Roasted Pear Trifle with Amaretto Banana Walnut Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce Pear & Cranberry Tart with Almond Cream Apple & Prune Armagnac Tart Pecan Fig Tartlets Shaker Lemon Tartlets Marion Blackberry Pies Crostada with Figs & Raspberry Wine Syrup Honey Pecan Pumpkin Pie Fluffy Pumpkin Pie And a big puff-pastry cornucopia filled with: Cuccidati Fig Cookies Apricot Butter Cookies Lemon Poppy Seed Macadamia Cookies Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Chocolate Chip Cookies Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies Cherry-Chocolate-Coconut Cookies Peppermint Bark Cookies <burp>

Update: We've gone with a curried cauliflower and apple soup from Daniel Boulud <clickety>. I realize it has a cup of cream, so it's not *quite* as light as I was looking for, but otherwise it's a winner for my starter criteria. Daniel does good soup, though. The introduction suggests a possible lobster/shrimp topping that can easily be added to serve too - that's a maybe.

You guys are awesome - thanks for all the great ideas to noodle over!!!

I made the tweaked Double Chocolate cake recipes this weekend (not whitetrufflegirl's, the original "tweaked" version simply because that's the one I saw first). It rocks. I love you guys. Fortuitously, I made two 9x12 pans and cut out rounds for small layer cakes - which meant a plethora of scraps. I was practically in a chocolate coma.

Am in the process of planning the Thanksgiving menu, and need some new ideas. We've been stuck in a rut of butternut-squash and chunky chowder soups for the past several years, and folks always groan about filling up too much on a rich soup before the big meal. (Of course, the idea of just not having the soup course also met with serious disapproval from opposing camps in the Soup Wars.) So I'm trying to think of an interesting soup that will make everyone happy. Like a soup with... ...mostly vegetables ...some kick to it ...not too heavy - enough to whet people's appetites, but not so they fill up before dinner ...make-ahead to reduce stress on T-Day Ideas? Help!

Good to know - thanks everybody! I feel much more in control of my holiday cooking this year.

I've used the Honey Crisp in two pies so far - an apple in phyllo tart and also an apple-prune-armagnac tart - delicious in both.

I've been filling up the spare freezer in the basement I've also been making preserves, so the spare fridge is getting kind of full too. I was thinking "no" on trying to do any custard or similar pies, like pumpkin, in advance. Also "no" on anything cheesecake related. Something tells me the texture would lose something. Good to know about the stabilized whipped cream and phyllo! For the whipped cream, I am making the Cake Bible raspberry whipped cream filling (using that awesome cordon rose raspberry jam that has the three freaking quarts of raspberries in it) - I'll look and see if I can make the filling with the stabilized whipped base, although I forget the recipe as I have not looked at it since I made the jam. Thanks for the advice, y'all!

This is what happens when you give a Type-A obsessive compulsive consultant 8 weeks off from work and nothing to do...so I created a project plan for Thanksgiving Desserts. Of course, the more I plan in advance, the more I actually end up making. Work expands to fill the time available. Anyway, thanks for the input! I'm figuring I can bake the three cakes (eG chocolate, pear spice, apricot pumpkin), and assemble the ones using buttercream. That will save a lot of time and heavy duty on the standing mixer. I think I can also do a poured ganache topping on the chocolate ones, which I believe can also be done ahead and frozen, then just make it glossy again using a hair dryer. What about phyllo dough or puff pastry tarts? My mind says logically that, since I can buy the phyllo and puff pastry frozen anyway, what's the harm in thawing it, putting some fruit in the middle of it, and freezing it again to bake later? Out of curiousity, any fruit pies that *shouldn't* be frozen? Maybe stuff with citrus or eggs? (Of course, I froze the Shaker Lemon tarts, which contains both and not much else, so here's crossing my fingers on the answer to that question.) Because I'm thinking from here on out, I just bake a mess of pies any time a good fruit is at it's best in season, freeze and then bake them when I feel like it.