Thanksgiving week is finally here!  I see a lot of you, and I follow with interest, as you set your Thanksgiving menus and begin the prep work, from kitchen organization to careful shopping, for your Thanksgiving meals.  How are you holding up? You're all looking great! This post is to offer a handful of recipes and tips for your Thanksgiving meal. If you need it, remember last year I wrote a couple of posts about crushing holiday entertaining, Part I and Part II so a quick read of my ten tips will really help you out this week.

Back to our Thanksgiving recipes. Below you'll find three recipes.  Thanksgiving Turkey, Vegetarian Stuffing, and Fancy Funeral Potatoes.  Each recipe is followed by video instruction.  I included the classic Thanksgiving Turkey because for many of us it is still the star of the Thanksgiving meal.  I use a self-basting technique that really frees up your time to work on other dishes while the turkey cooks.  This technique keeps the turkey moist on the inside and crispy on the outside. 

My wife is a pescatarian and she loves Thanksgiving stuffing, which usually is made with a meat based broth. So I developed and included a delicious vegetarian stuffing. I think most of us have guest lists that include a variety of dietary restrictions.  Not everything on your table needs to cater to each guest.  My advice is, take
diets into account and where it's simple to accommodate—like vegetable broth rather than chicken broth—do so. 

Finally, I include a recipe for Fancy Funeral Potatoes.  What are those? And why that name? When my
brother-in-law came to NYC in August for our wedding he told us about how he's been experimenting with funeral potatoes and changing up the recipe to make them spicy, or fancy, etc. First, he had to explain to the table of New Yorkers what funeral potatoes are.  As I understand it,  in Utah culture it's a very popular potato casserole that is commonly brought to funeral luncheons, hence the name. Wanting to participate in the challenge to play with the traditional recipe I thought that this creamy and crunchy dish would be perfect for Thanksgiving.  Traditionally, funeral potatoes have a corn flake crust which you'll see I substituted for colorful root vegetable chips.  Also, the recipe tends to call for canned cream of chicken or mushroom soup.  I
opted to keep that out and make a French style cream sauce.  Finally, you can play with whatever cheese you like and I decided to add gruyere a nod to the French twist I gave the dish.  

Thanksgiving Recipes: Fancy Funeral Potatoes

• 2 pounds of russet potatoes (peeled and thinly sliced on a mandoline)

• 1 and 1/2 cups sour cream

• 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

• 1/2 cup shredded gruyere cheese

• 5 Tablespoons of butter

• 1 pint half and half

• 2 teaspoons salt

• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Thanksgiving Recipes: Vegetarian Stuffing

• 8 cups of Rustic bread (cubed)

• 3 ounces butter + 1 tablespoon for baking dish

• 1 cup chopped onion

• ½ cup celery chopped

• 1 teaspoon garlic chopped

•  ¼ cup fresh parsley chopped

• 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary chopped

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 egg

• 1 cup vegetable stock + ½ cup to pour over in pan

Thanksgiving Recipes: Turkey

• 1 small turkey (10 pounds)

• 7 ounces butter

• Cheesecloth

• 1 onion cut in large quarters

• Fresh herbs (I use thyme but you can add anything such as rosemary, sage, etc.)

• Salt, enough for full turkey rub

• Pepper