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Hello there!

I'm sure we've had this topic before, but it's the beginning of a new holiday season and I thought it would be nice to start up the conversation again.

What are your favorite recipes to make during the holidays?  Do you always try something new or do you stick with tradition?

This year, I'm making cranberry sauce and dinner rolls with my bread machine and I'll probably make a couple pies to bring to Thanksgiving dinner at my mother's house next week.  The cranberry sauce and rolls are new for me - usually we just buy those (the canned cranberry sauce will still be present at dinner - it will always be my favorite!)

What about you?

~Bonnie~

This year I'm going to friends with my kids (whoops, young adults) and as desserts are my passion, that is what I'll be bringing.  I definitely want to make Spiced maple pecan pie with star anise from Melissa Clark's wonderful new book, Cook This Now. I haven't decided on the other dessert - I'm rather hampered by my daughter's phobia about cooked fruit (weird, I know).  Which rather cuts out a huge chunk of Thanksgiving desserts.  Or maybe I'll make some cranberry chocolate cookies (dried cranberries are OK for her) for the kids who don't want "real" desserts. And then choose something with pears or apples - I'm thinking of a cake since I'm already making the pecan pie.

I have a ridiculous number of Thanksgiving recipes - I've kept the Gourmet Thanksgiving issue for about the last 20 years (but no more, sob).  I subscribed even when I lived in the UK (and used to host a Thanksgiving dinner every year even though I don't have an ounce of American blood).  And for about the last 10 years, Bon Appetit too.  So that is a lot of recipes!

There are a few standards that cannot be varied (which will now appear for Christmas dinner, since that for Brits is very similar to the American Thanksgiving):

Artichoke, sausage and Parmesan cheese stuffing by Bruce Aidells from Nov 2002 Bon Appetit

Cranberry sauce with port and tangerine by Melissa Roberts from Nov 2007 Gourmet

Bacon-wrapped sausages by Nigella Lawson from Feast (also in Nigella Christmas)

Perfect roast potatoes also by Nigella Lawson from Feast (also in Nigella Christmas)

Everything else - sides, desserts, soup (if I have any help that year) - vary from year to year. I'd love to hear everyone else's favorites.

For ten years I made the pumpkin cheesecake with bourbon sour cream topping from the November 1990 Gourmet.  Then my dad had a triple bypass, and I decided that probably wasn't in his best interest anymore.

Then I switched to Bourbon pumpkin tart with walnut streusel from November 2005 Fine Cooking.  This isn't a "healthy" recipe, but at least it doesn't have a pound and a half of cream cheese in it.

Last year I made Smitten Kitchen's Balsamic braised Brussels sprouts with pancetta and everyone loved them.  I caught my sister-in-law eating the leftovers for breakfast the next morning.

As much as I'd love to try a different stuffing recipe, everyone insists I make the old stand-by Pepperidge farm herb stuffing with Harrington's pork sausage.  I hate to make two kinds of stuffing, but it's getting kind of old for me.

Our family's Thanksgiving has always been pretty traditional.  My mother has always made whole cranberry-orange relish, but your cranberry-tangerine-Port recipe sounds even better, Jane!  I'll have to convince her to try it!

Being Jewish, Hanukkah latkes are a favorite -- just the standard potato version, made easy with the food processor.  Not low-calorie, but wonderful for a once-a-year treat!  (There are some lower calorie oven-baked versions.)

I've always enjoyed splurging for New Year's with a few friends:  caviar and foie gras first courses, followed by a fettucine Alfredo (sometimes truffled, other times with some caviar and vodka in the cream sauce) and finished either with a cheese plate or a rich dessert.  Some years when I wasn't so flush the foie gras was replaced with a home-made "mousse de foie de volaille en aspic."  Moderately priced American caviar is available, from paddlefish or bowfin, and it's quite good!  Using a bit of cardboard to keep them separate, I've usually filled one side of the caviar server with golden whitefish roe and the other side with American caviar.  (Then remove the cardboard.)  The two colors make a nice presentation.  The golden whitefish caviar is very inexpensive.  

I am not allowed to change much in my Thanksgiving menu exept the sweet potato dish.  Last year I tried a sweet potato and pear gratin from Woman's Day that turned out well. This year I plan to add chopped spiced pecans to the top before serving.

If you are looking for a very different cranberry sauce, try Smitten Kitchen's Alex's Mother's Cranberry Sauce.  I just found it on EYB and had to try it.  It takes a can of whole cranberry sauce, a can of jellied cranberry sauce, a bag of frozen mixed berries, and walnuts. Since none of my children or grandchildren will touch cranberry sauce, I tried it on my husband.  The first night he said it was OK and I said it was bland and tasteless.  The second day I tried it and, wow, something happened overnight and it was now very tasty indeed.  Still it makes too much for two so it will just be a pleasant memory.

My favorite thing to make during the holidays is turkey gravy!  My prefered method for the roast bird to be carved, roasted on a spit in my gas grill, is highly iffy in the gravy department.  It is hard to gather and avoid burning the drippings.  So now I require 2 birds!  Numero uno is, shall we say, dissambled.  When the grocery stores are featuring loss leader turkeys, I grab a frozen megabuzzard.  Thawed numero uno turkey is separated into boneless white meat (two breast halves, each about 3 1/2 pounds), boneless dark meat (4/12 pounds); and the back, innerds minus liver, wingies and bones.  The boned out meat is now frozen. The bones and back were roasted that this morning, then to the stock pot.  The key magic here is CAREFULLY pouring off the pure roast turkey FAT from the roasting pan before deglazing the pan into the stock pot. The fat drippings are currently cooling in ice cube trays.  After 5 or 6 hours of slow simmering, I will filter off the stock, strain, chill, defat, and concentrate it.  The house smells gloriously of roast turkey.  Retired racing greyhound will eventually get the boiled bones and bits from the stock pot, since he has taught his digestive system how to manage poultry. And I might just have nibbled a bit of crisp skin already...

 Thanksgiving Day numero dos turkey will exit gracefully from its cider brine and twirl roasted to a crisp golden perfection outside in about 2 hours.  I will melt the turkey fat cubes with flour, add the glorious broth, and serve it forth.  There will be enough gravy for all the leftovers.  Plus I will have turkey drippings for culinary use with the frozen meats later.  But it is really about the gravy!