Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. Arguably the greatest holiday of the year. When else do we get 2 days off to celebrate food and family. A holiday centered around one huge meal, and subsequent side meals of sandwiches made from leftovers (my favorite meal of the year happens to be the post-thanksgiving sandwich). My family, like all others, has its traditions and general hoopla surrounding this epic meal. We are pretty traditional in our turkey dinner with all of the normal things you would see on a thanksgiving table. Ive been trying in the past few years to push the envelope and get my family to try new things at thanksgiving. This year I was handed the assignment of appetizers, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Given that my family doesn't deal with a change in tradition to easily, I took these standard assignments and tried to dress them up a bit without fully straying from the traditional flavors of the dishes.

My appetizer was a take on bacon wrapped figs. With a minor miss communication on a shopping list, I was handed 2 boxes of dates, and crumbled goat cheese. Not really ideal for starting this dish on Thanksgiving day. So, I ran with it. I've never used dates in cooking before, and realized quickly that they are much sweeter than figs. So my first step, fry some bacon. 'Cause bacon is just magical. I took the rendered bacon fat and added some fine diced shallots. Once those were soft I added the dried dates. Seeing that the mixture needed some liquid, I quickly found a cheap bottle of red wine and added it to the pan. Now, I was getting somewhere. I decided that no one really would like a big chunk of date being stuck in their teeth before dinner, so I took the mixture and put it in a food processor. Capriciously, I added a little bit of goat cheese and hit blend. Not bad, I thought. So, i added the whole lot of the cheese, while taking out some of the date mixture. The puree was delicious. To finish this dish, I had decided earlier with the figs I was going to serve it in an endive wrapped in prosciutto adding salt, bitterness, and a nice crunch to the app.
So, I piped the mixture onto the endive and quickly realized I had to completely hide it with the prosciutto due to its unappealing look.
All in all, it turned out pretty good. The family dusted the tray before the Turkey went into the fryer.

Mashed potatoes. Pretty sacred in my family. One way, simple, kinda boring. I saw a trick on Food Network that called for boiling the potatoes in milk. So, I tried it. Whole milk, water, fresh thyme, salt & white pepper boiled the yukon gold potatoes. Once tender I just added some butter, and placed some of the milk mixture back into the potatoes. Finished with a handful parmesan cheese and these potatoes were outstanding. Try this, you wont be disappointed.