Poor Richard’s Almanac

Thanksgiving sides. November 4, 2010

Silence Dogood here. Okay, it’s only November 4th, but the Harvest Home season is in full swing—our friend Ben and I consider Harvest Home to last from Labor Day through Thanksgiving—and besides, admit it: You’re already thinking about Thanksgiving dinner, right?

Some Thanksgiving sides are simply iconic. Here at Hawk’s Haven, these include mashed potatoes, dressing, dried corn pudding, and cranberries (both homemade and that childhood favorite from a can, jellied cranberries). We always have a big, fresh tossed salad, and we usually serve green beans or sauteed spinach to counterbalance all that starch. And we do love our sweet potatoes, baked to the point of caramelizing and served up with butter, salt, and cracked black pepper. Yum!!!!

However, we’re always open to new ideas, and this year, I have three to offer. (I’ll give you my unspeakably good dressing and dried corn pudding recipes, not to mention my Dogood Family Cranberry Recipe and fabulous Thanksgiving salad as the holiday draws nearer, so stay tuned.) One great thing about all three of these dishes is that they’re so easy to make, you could serve them every week through the cold season, yet they’re so delicious, they’ll set off a holiday feast. Let’s take a look at them:

        Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Mushrooms and Sweet Onion

This is a dish of my own devising, and boy, is it delicious. Nothing could be easier to make, and served over rice or with a side of creamy pasta (and baked or roasted chicken for you carnivores out there) and a salad, it’s a perfect cold-weather meal. Healthy and luscious—how often do you see that combination? It’s OFB’s favorite, so we serve it often. And it really is this easy:

Wash 1 1/2 sweet potatoes per person, skins on. Cut off ends and compost, then slice sweet potatoes in 1/2-inch-thick rounds. (We prefer organic sweet potatoes, since we leave the skins on, but whether you opt for organic or not, we can assure you that the resulting rounds are uniformly tender and delicious, skins and all.) Peel 2 large sweet onions (Vidalia’s our favorite for this), cut off and compost the ends (our compost bucket is always present when we’re making supper), and cut each onion into eighths (wedges). Wash a pound (16 ounces) of button mushrooms and twist out the stems, adding the stems to the compost bucket.

Place the sweet potato rounds on an aluminum-foil-lined cookie sheet. Drizzle extra-virgin olive oil over them, smoothing the oil evenly over each round with a silicone brush or the back of a spoon. I like to use a wild mushroom and sage-infused olive oil for this, but you could always use plain e-v olive oil and mince fresh sage leaves, available at most groceries in the produce section, adding them over the slices. Then I finish the slices with salt (we like RealSalt) or Trocamare, lemon pepper, and a sprinkling of Italian herbs (dried basil, oregano, thyme, and rosemary) and slide the sheet into the oven at 350 degrees F.

While the sweet potato slices are cooking, arrange the onion wedges and the mushrooms, underside up, on a second aluminum-foil-lined sheet. Drizzle olive oil over them and finish with salt, pepper, and/or Italian herbs. Once the oil is bubbling on the sweet potato tray, turn the heat down to 300 degrees and slide in the onion/mushroom tray. Cook until the onions, mushrooms, and sweet potato slices are easily pierced with a fork, then mix and serve.

                      Braised Escarole

While we were visiting our friends Cole, Bruce, and Edith last weekend in scenic Charlottesville, Virginia, Cole served up such a simple and delicious side dish that we ignored the elaborate main dish and wolfed down the side as though veggies were going out of style. I’ll need to work with this to recreate the full deliciousness, but basically, Cole braised escarole in a pan with just a touch of water, then sauteed it in olive oil once the water had evaporated and served it up with salt and fresh-ground pepper.

What’s escarole, you ask? It’s a broad-leaved endive that’s paler and less bitter than classic endive. You can find it with the other fresh greens in the produce section of your grocery, and it’s definitely worth looking for. This dish may not sound too exciting, but I tell you, our friend Ben and I just couldn’t stop eating it. We’d have happily consumed the entire pan with rice and called it a meal. It was so delicious!!! The olive oil and the body of the escarole give the dish a richness that makes it perfect for fall meals. I plan to make it and experiment with adding thinly sliced sweet onion and garlic, toasted sesame oil, perhaps just a teensy splash of shoyu or tamari (both types of soy sauce).

           Butternut-Spinach Saute

While OFB and I were visiting with our friends Cole, Bruce, and Edith, we joined one of our favorite couples, Jim and Trudi, for supper at the Three Notch’d Grill in nearby Crozet, VA. (Virginians, if you haven’t gone there, you should definitely make it a destination. See the menu and setting for yourselves at www.threenotchedgrill.com/.)

As noted, we often serve sauteed spinach as a Thanksgiving side, sauteeing the fresh baby spinach with minced garlic in e-v olive oil. But the Three Notch’d side dish, combining diced Butternut squash with spinach in olive oil, powdered cumin, salt, and fresh-ground pepper, was delicious beyond belief. Fortunately, Bruce, on one side of me at the table, had also ordered it, so I only had to share it with Edith, on the other side, and OFB, who mercifully wasn’t sitting close enough to hijack the rest of it.

Admittedly, I didn’t ask for the recipe, but assume that the diced squash is added to the olive oil-cumin-salt-pepper and sauteed until tender, then the spinach is added and cooked until just wilted. Oh, yum. Maybe we’ll serve this for Thanksgiving dinner this year and do the escarole or green beans as the second “green” side.   

Anyway, there you have it: Three easy, delicious dishes to serve all fall and winter, and to give special sparkle to this year’s Thanksgiving feast.

                 ‘Til next time,

                               Silence