Orts & Reports: Side Effects
Potential reactions may include a pleasant aftertaste
Ah, Thanksgiving.
Until recently, the only day of the year when I spend more time in the kitchen than the usual five-minute flutter between microwaved Lean Cuisines and hastily thrown-together salads.
If you’ve subscribed to this newsletter for a while, you’ve been following my epic return to the world of cooking. You’re aware that I’ve been chopping and mixing and sauteeing and baking my way through 2023. And you’ll nod along when I say I’ve made more food in the past ten months than I have over the past decade—89 new recipes and counting.
If you’re new to Cook & Tell, now you know.
After spending the better part of a month menu planning a Thanksgiving feast in which I envisioned a ridiculously unattainable Ina Garten-meets-Martha-Stewart extravaganza, I fell to earth with a dull thud. A return to the basics seemed a more realistic option.
So I hit the books, namely the book, the brittle pages of my photo-album-turned-recipe-book. The time capsule containing 40 years’ worth of memories and family history. The disorganized jumble of clippings and scribbled notes that languishes for most of the year in the little stovetop cupboard along with the old and largely unused cookbooks that have followed me from Maine to California and Arizona.
And there I found the classic, cozy dishes I’ve made every Thanksgiving, the dishes my mom made every Thanksgiving, the simple recipes that have warmed our spirits and our bellies for a lifetime. As comforting as a mug of cocoa in front of the fire with the cat on your lap.
If you’re outside the US or not celebrating the holiday or if you’re spending Thanksgiving at a fancy restaurant (been there, done that; not a fan), this trio of side dishes can be worked into any menu, any time you need a little comfort.
Recipe Classic #1: The Pea Dish
Wedged in the recipe album on a notecard my mother sent after I’d moved 3,000 miles away to California, her recipe for Petits Pois and Onions.
It's a dish I’ve served at countless Thanksgivings: for my former Maine and California roommates and friends (where it became known as, simply, “The Pea Dish”); the year I went full-on vegetarian with a menu of only side dishes and desserts; and, rather unsuccessfully, at the low-fat, low-carb, low-cal Thanksgiving meal mandated by a former father-in-law.
Petits Pois & Onions
½ lb. bacon slices, diced
3 T. butter
12 small white onions
2 T. flour
1 c. chicken stock
1 16-0z. bag petite frozen peas
½ tsp. tarragon
Salt & pepper to taste
Heat bacon and butter in large skillet on medium heat until bacon is lightly browned but not crisp. Add onions, browning slowly on all sides until tender, about 15 minutes.
Remove bacon and onions from pan; set aside on plate. Stir flour into drippings with wooden spoon. Slowly add broth, stirring constantly. Add peas and simmer, covered about 5 minutes. Return onions and bacon to pan. Add seasonings.
Recipe Classic #2: Squashed
Squashed next to the recipe for jalapeño cornbread, a recipe for the squash casserole I’d loved as a kid. Upon finding a rare hour in my hotel room amidst three days of corporate meetings in Nebraska some twenty years ago—the meetings were mandatory, all-hands-on-deck sort of meetings, during the cruelest time of year for travel—I’d called my mom for the recipe and jotted it on an Embassy Suites notepad. I’ve tweaked the casserole over the years, but it will forever remain a Thanksgiving menu standard.
Squash Casserole
1 c. fresh butternut or Hubbard squash, or a 10-oz. bag of frozen, cubed butternut squash, cooked and mashed
½ stick butter
1 egg
½ t. pepper
½ c. chopped onion
¾ c. shredded cheddar cheese, preferably NOT pre-shredded
¾ c. breadcrumbs
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Transfer to a quart sized casserole and bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.
Recipe Classic #3: No French’s Onions Allowed
Here’s one I found while rooting through the Cook & Tell archives, which is a large chunk of my job when I’m in my Maine studio: researching, reading, recipe testing and, yeah, writing. I guess you could say I’m living my mother’s old life. I’ll be demoing this dish at my own Thanksgiving celebration this year: an intimate gathering for the five in our family, three of which are quadrupeds and skilled at meal cleanup. (The cat, not so much).
Not Your Typical Green Bean Casserole
4 c. fresh cooked green beans or 2 10-oz. packages, frozen
2 T. canola oil
1 T. vinegar
2 T. minced onion
¼ t. salt
¼ t. pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
Toss all into a bowl; pour into greased 1 ½ quart casserole. Sprinkle over top the following, combined:
1 T. melted butter
2 or 3 T. breadcrumbs
2 T. grated Parmesan cheese
3 T. finely chopped walnuts
Bake uncovered at 350 for 15 min.
As we enter the season of holiday food and eating, consider paying it forward by feeding others who are not as fortunate. You can make a donation at the local level to the Good Shepherd Food Bank of Maine or at the global level through the United Nations World Food Programme Share The Meal.
On a more personal level, reader Amy S, who’s close to cooking up a baker’s dozen of Cook & Tell recipes this year, paid it forward when she shared an extra loaf of last month’s cranberry pumpkin cornbread with a neighbor. Amy asked if dried cranberries could be subbed for fresh, which sent me running to Google; I may be a fledgling foodie, but I’m sure as hell no Larousse Gastronomique. I’m delighted to report that dried cranberries can, in fact, be substituted at a ratio of ¾ cup dried to 1 cup fresh.
“It’s REALLY good,” Amy writes. “Addictive, almost.”
Amy and I met in the weekly online writing groups she hosts, and she’s also offering a January Writing Retreat in Maryland which you can bet I’ll be attending. She’s got a couple of openings left, if you’re interested.
Thank you, readers old and new, for inspiring us to keep cooking and telling.
Your pantry pals,
Amie & Karyl
Loved the “I love my kids” note on the Pea Recipe! Come back to Maine, and soon! With love from your Southport neighbor.
Thank you Amie! :)