sheetz

Has anyone come out with a Krispy Kreme stuffing recipe yet?

There's also the option of making pumpkin cheesecakes, which do freeze well. I suppose the cheesecakes could even be made as pies if you wanted.

Maybe you can try one of the recipes for a frozen pumpkin pie variant . This recipe seems to have received lots of good reviews. Or else sell frozen, unbaked apple pies instead and include baking instructions on the box.

Have you ever made it? I'm just wondering what it tastes like--a 16 oz box of powdered sugar seems like an awful lot. ← Well, Paula is a Southern girl who likes her sweets, that's for sure. I did make it before and from what I recall, the crust actually seemed sweeter than the filling did. It would be easy to reduce the sweetness of the recipe, however, by not using the entire box of powdered sugar and/or replacing some of the cake mix with AP flour.

How about Paula Deen's pumpkin gooey butter cake? Your husband could probably do it himself, even. http://www.pauladeen.com/recipe_view/562 Here's a video of Paula showing how to make it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmA2X0jAUkU

What about something deep fried, especially something that would puff up during cooking? Kids, and even adults, are always fascinated by things like that. Chinese prawn crackers probably aren't kosher, but you can also fry cellophane noodles or rice crusts. Even Indian puri bread.

djyee100, thanks, those dishes look interesting and have given me some ideas. However, I should have been more clear and indicated that I don't actually want to make anything "fushiony," which most of the dishes seem to be. I think a menu like that is more suitable as a Pan Asian theme dinner for a Western audience than one that I would cook for a multigenerational group of Chinese Americans. I guess what I'm looking for are dishes that are Chinese in essence but that also happen to fit the Thanksgiving theme if that makes any sense. Maybe something like taro steamed with kao yuk as it is sort of reminiscent of a traditional dish of potatoes. Or maybe something like cream of corn soup with some cubed butternut squash stirred in. I don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas. ETA: Also, I want to mention that I'd want to prepare dishes prepared in a variety of different styles. So I might have dishes that are steamed, stir fried, deep fried, stewed, roasted, etc.. And the textures should contrast, too. Bonus points for things that can be prepared in advance!

Any suggestions for side dishes for a Chinese American Thanksgiving dinner? I'm making honey-soy glazed turkey, glutinous rice, and not sure what else would go well. I normally make a more traditional American style Thanksgiving dinner.

After playing with Jaymes' recipe a few times I came up with a method for those who prefer a clumpier style of caramel popcorn. By following this method the nuts will adhere to the popcorn rather than just sink to the bottom. Note: I halved Jaymes' recipe to make it easier to handle. After only a couple of trials it became clear that if I wanted the popcorn and nuts to cling together I had to reduce the amount of stirring called for in the recipe, especially at the end of the baking when the stirring would act to separate the popcorn and nuts from one another. In order to accomplish that I did a few things: The first was to place the uncoated popcorn in a pot or metal bowl in the preheating oven in order to to keep it warm. This makes it so much easier to evenly distribute the caramel into the popcorn later on and reduce the amount of stirring necessary. Next, I only stirred the popcorn 3 times in the first 24 minutes at 8 minute intervals. After that I pushed all the popcorn into one large mass and let it bake undisturbed for another 25-30 min. After it was done baking, I dumped the popcorn in a big pile on top of wax paper and allowed it to cool. From there all that was left was to separate the popcorn into whatever sized clusters I desired. I hope somebody else tries out this method and lets me know what they think.

I've been wondering about that, too. I wonder if it would help to add the nuts towards the end, when the caramel is more sticky. During the first 30 minutes the caramel is still too syrupy so when you stir the popcorn the nuts sink to the bottom.

From the recipe it looks like they cooked the heck out of that chicken, didn't they (3-3.5 lb chicken at 375F for 2 hours)? But I guess that's what you have to do in order to cook the stuffing all the way through. It could be a regional variation. In the South the lower gluten flours worked better leavened with baking powder, which is why that region is more famous for its baking powder biscuits than yeast rolls. In the Northern regions the opposite is true because the higher gluten flours worked better with yeast.

I'm not even sure it would be a matter of a 'safe' temperature in this case because it looks to me that even when the bread has reached a safe temperature to eat it'll still taste like raw dough. How high a temperature does the dough need to reach before the raw taste is cooked out?

I've never been to England, but years ago I did spend a month in New Zealand, which I've been told shares many of same culinary tradiations. One thing I did notice in that short time was the relative lack of textural variety among the local cuisine. I'm used to Chinese cuisine, in which texture plays a very important role, so although the stews, roasts, meat pies, and other foods I sampled on that trip were all technically different from one another, they all shared a certain homogeneity to them that started to drive me insane by the third week.

Browning?

175 deg F? You're WAAAAAAAAAAAAY into the 'safe' zone as far as cooking temperatures go. The 'pink' you're talking about is not the same kind of 'pink' that you get when pork is undercooked (i.e. below 140 F). I've cooked pork shoulder all day long and still had some red in the middle even though the meat was literally falling apart. Color is not a good indication of doneness.

I liked making individual sized pot pies in disposable aluminum tins.

I think there probably wouldn't be an issue with letting the turkey rest for that long because the harmful pathogens would have been killed within the first few minutes of the poaching. In order for harmful bacteria to grow during that time they'd have to be reintroduced to the turkey somehow, which I think would not easy to do in a covered pot. As for the roasting part, the directions say to roast for 30 minutes, but then to turn the heat off and leave it in the oven for an unspecified amount of time. So in the end the turkey would actually be spending quite a bit longer than 30 minutes in a warm to hot oven.

Has anyone ever tried this method of roasting a turkey? The turkey is first poached in stock the day before, and then then roasted at 475F for 30 minutes. I've used a similar method for a Chinese style deep fried chicken but never on a roasted turkey. http://www.dartagnan.com/recipe.asp?id=11&category=4 It sounds fairly foolproof and if the results are good would really help free up the oven for the side dishes.

I couldn't tell you what's in it, but I have used Kikkoman Tempura sauce as a substitute before and I felt the taste was pretty close.

Saw this article posted on Yahoo. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080927/ap_on_...te_rabbit_candy I wonder how many of us ate these growing up. Just about all the Chinese kids I knew ate them.

FYI, I was looking through the recipes from the link I provided and found that the Kung Pao Chicken recipe had a couple of typos in the list of ingredients. Here's the correct recipe: http://www.leitesculinaria.com/recipes/coo...k/kung_pao.html

Try one of the recipes by Fuchsia Dunlop: Ma Po Dofu (Pock Marked Mother's Bean Curd), Dan Dan Noodles, and Kung Pao Chicken are some of the most famous dishes from this region. http://uktv.co.uk/food/item/aid/530777

In Chinese style red bean paste snacks the bean paste itself is showcased and you wouldn't want strongly competing flavors. Light coconut would work, or maybe lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Finally got around to making some mooncakes this week, but the local Chinese grocery didn't have any lotus seeds so for the filling I made green tea flavored mung bean paste instead. Mung bean paste doesn't seem to have the same structure as lotus seed paste, so the mooncakes didn't hold their shape quite as well as those made with lotus seed paste.

Instead of actually trying to dye the couscous, how about just sauteeing it in a pan and adding soy sauce like you would if you were making fried rice? If you don't have soy sauce, Kitchen Bouquet would work, too.