Two Side Dishes

Thanksgiving is approaching. I know which main dish I'm making and Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving without my mother's dressing.  A friend is bringing the veggie main dish and homemade cranberry sauce. My husband will make pies (I hope, I hope.)  But we're still short a couple of side dishes.  Luckily,  I Heart Cooking Clubs  is featuring side dishes by our current chef, Ellie Krieger.

I have long wanted to try making oven baked onion rings. I love onion rings, but dread deep fat frying.  The recipe is from The Food You Crave or you can find it here.  It's quite easy to make. It's not the same as eating traditional onion rings, but it's a satisfying dish all the same.  I might add a little more salt and I wonder what it would be like if I used regular potato chips instead of baked potato chips.    

There is one other thing I will do differently next time.  Onion slices are dusted with flour, dipped into buttermilk and then covered with potato chip crumbs.  The crumbs got soggy after a few of the onion slices were dipped in them.  After that, it was hard to get the crumbs to adhere to the onion slices. Next time, I will divide the crumbs into smaller portions, so the crumbs stay drier.

I also made broccoli toasted with garlic, from the same book.  The recipe is available here as well.  Basically, you sauté the garlic, sauté the broccoli, pour the garlic on the broccoli and voila, a very tasty, healthy side dish. 

Visit IHCC to see what other wonderful sides people cooked up.

Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast

Food-wise, Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday.  When the kids were at home and we had Shabbat dinner every Friday, our menu often included turkey, dressing, green beans, cranberry sauce and Challah.

Any Way You Slice It is the theme for the week at I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC) so clearly that's a sign that I should make a turkey breast for dinner. There are only two of us at home these days, so a whole turkey would be too much. Sunny, our dog, might disagree. 

"Ahem," says the dog, eagerly waiting for turkey.

I made Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast from The Food You Crave. You can also find it here.   The dish is described as "a breeze to make and a real crowd pleaser." Agreed. You basically rub a mixture of olive oil and herbs onto a skinless turkey breast, put it in the oven and wait.

 

The biggest challenge for me was removing the skin.  I often remove the fattiest parts, but this was the first time I took off the whole skin and I was surprised by how much fat is under it all. I was worried that the turkey would come out quite dry. Instead, it came out flavorful and moist.  I should mention that I have a kosher kitchen and that the turkey breast comes pre-soaked and salted. From the kosher point of view, that is done to remove any trace of blood from the meat.  From a technique point of view, that may be known as brining the meat. This may account for some of the moistness.

 

 

I threw in some onions and potatoes to roast with the turkey and made cranberry sauce, as well. The recipe for the cranberry sauce is on the back of the Ocean Spray  package or here. . 



To see how many ways you slice oh so many kinds of delicious dishes check out IHCC .