Holiday, Occasion, and Entertaining Recipes
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Thanksgiving Recipes
As you might imagine, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Here is a selection of my recipes that will complement any Thanksgiving table. Just click on the links to go to the relevant recipes on the blog.
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Strawberry Shortcake
I remember waiting and waiting for the first strawberries of the summer when I was a child. It seemed like forever before they arrived. But once they did, joyfully, there was an abundance! I spent many a summer morning eating bowls and bowls of fresh, fragrant, sweet strawberries. Strawberry shortcake is a true summer treat….
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Whipped Cream
Nothing can replace the taste of freshly whipped cream. The recipe is so easy and the results so luscious, there’s no reason not to try it yourself. Your family and friends will definitely thank you for it!
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How to Roast a Chicken
Most of you are probably planning to roast a turkey for Thanksgiving, but here’s an option for a smaller gathering: roast chicken. The technique for making a roast chicken and a roast turkey is the same. I love roast chicken, and it’s incredibly easy to do. It makes a great family dinner or weekend entertaining dish….
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Dessert | Holiday, Occasion, Entertaining | Ingredients | Meals & Courses | Produce | Seasonal | Summer
Italian Prune Plum Clafouti
Last weekend I found Italian prune plums at my local farm market. The grower told me they were the last of the season. I was so happy I hadn’t missed the season entirely! A simple plum clafouti is one of my favorite ways to use them. A clafouti is basically a sweet crepe batter poured over fruit and…
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Mushroom Stuffing
My nephew, Sam, is a vegetarian. If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have developed this recipe. As you know from my previous post, I’m a big fan of stuffing cooked inside the turkey. Of course, one can’t do that for a vegetarian stuffing, so I had to come up with one cooked outside the…
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Roast Turkey
It’s that time of year again, and the big question is: how does one roast a turkey? Well, I’ve tried numerous methods, and this is the one I’ve settled on. It’s from the now defunct Gourmet magazine. In the original article, I believe they said that they had tested over 25 ways to roast a turkey…
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A Julia Party
Theme for the evening: fabulous friends, a film about Julia, and food from Julia. Recently I hosted 13 fabulous women at a Julia Child-themed dinner party. Everyone invited was asked to bring a dish from a Julia Child cookbook that had meaning for them and share why they had chosen it. We started the evening by watching…
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Cut-Out Christmas Cookies
Growing up, my family made only one kind of cookie at Christmas time: cut-out Christmas cookies. MM and I continue the tradition today. This year, by the time we’re done, we’ll have made five batches to eat and give away. Our list of friends and family with whom we share these cookies seems to grow every year! Cut-out cookies take…
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Condiments, Dips & Sauces | Diet | Fall | Holiday, Occasion, Entertaining | Ingredients | Meals & Courses | Produce | Seasonal | Vegan
Easy Cranberry Sauce
Another Thanksgiving favorite of mine is cranberry sauce. I’ve loved it since childhood. However, I have to admit that what I loved in childhood was the canned, jellied kind, which seemed almost magical. My mom would open both ends of the can and then push it out one end. There it would sit on the serving…
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Condiments, Dips & Sauces | Cooking Basics | Holiday, Occasion, Entertaining | Meals & Courses | Techniques
Thanksgiving Gravy
This is it: turkey day is approaching. Plenty of cooks who manage very well all year panic when Thanksgiving approaches. How do you cook the perfect turkey? What is stuffing, anyway? Yikes, gravy! How do you make that? I’ve received a request from my sister-in-law DD to help her and the many other anxious cooks out there. So,…
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Shrimp Butter
This recipe was another request. My sister-in-law, DD, compiles a great cookbook every so often that’s comprised of recipes contributed by family and friends. She’s working on the third edition and wanted me to contribute my recipe for Shrimp Butter. The premise of her book is that all of the recipes are very easy, tried and…
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Diet | Gluten Free | Holiday, Occasion, Entertaining | Ingredients | Meals & Courses | Produce | Salad
Revisiting the Iceberg Wedge
Since I moved to the Washington, DC area, I’ve been invited to join a couple of cooking groups. This is a new thing for me. I’ve never been involved in a cooking group before, and now I’m in two! One of the groups is composed of international members; I have the honor of being the…
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Favorite Grilled Flank Steak
It’s a beautiful fall here in the DC area, and I’m trying to eek out every evening of outdoor time. We had some friends over the other evening and I pulled out one of my easiest and all time favorite recipes for grilled flank steak. Everyone needs a few quick, “greatest hits” recipes. This is one of those….
