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Turkey Alphabet Soup
Makes 4 quarts
3 quarts turkey stock
1 large onion, diced
2 zucchini, diced
1 large yellow squash, diced
4 peeled and chopped carrots in rounds
3 celery stalks, diced
2 cups cubed leftover turkey
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
1 ½ cups pasta such as alphabets, pre-cooked
Kosher salt to taste
In a large stock pot, sautee all vegetables in olive oil. Add stock, let come to a boil and turn down heat to a simmer until carrots are slightly tender. Add pre-cooked pasta, turkey and parsley. Let cool and transfer to containers and freeze. If you time it right, kids will love it as an after-school snack.
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Spinach Pie
Makes one large pie
This delicious, simple side dish is a hit at holiday time and for potlucks. It makes a nice presentation in a pretty baking dish. Get together with a friend the day before to whip up the ingredients, put it all in a dish, refrigerate overnight, and pop in the oven Thanksgiving day. You can experiment with the cheeses-use more low-fat cottage cheese to make a super-healthy dish, or substitute a different variety of white cheese such as Monterey Jack.
3 small (10 oz.) packages frozen chopped spinach
2 ½ cups cottage cheese
3 cups shredded sharp white cheddar cheese
4 eggs
1/3 cup flour
3 tablespoons melted butter
Salt and white pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Thaw and drain spinach very well (otherwise the dish will be too soggy). In a large bowl, mix all ingredients well. Spread evenly in a large, lightly buttered casserole dish and bake for one hour.
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Dear Friends,
There's a lot to be thankful for in life. For us, our friends and family are at the top of the list. Whether you cook with friends, bike or run with friends or simply hang out, you'll probably agree that life is much easier when you have a network of people to depend on. In this issue, we'd like to thank you, our friends, for your loyal readership, involvement in Cooking With Friends, and inspiration. We'd also like to encourage you to use your friendships to help accomplish a successful, stress-free Thanksgiving feast. We've packed this issue with ideas, tips and recipes to cook with your friends for the Thanksgiving holiday. Enjoy!Please e-mail us at info@cookingwithfriendsclub.com and check out our web site, featuring our blogs and lots of great tips at www.cookingwithfriendsclub.com.
Alison and Shannon
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 Thanksgiving, or any other holiday for that matter, is a perfect excuse to get together with friends. In fact, it's during the holidays when meaningful, often long lasting baking and cooking traditions are formed. Whether you're simply a guest at someone's Thanksgiving meal or you're throwing your own gigantic feast, there are plenty of opportunities to cook and bake with friends in advance. Whether you make an appetizer together, pies, corn bread, biscuits, stuffing, a spinach pie (see our recipe), or a hearty first course soup (our Autumn Soupwould be perfect!), doing it with a friend reduces holiday stress and makes it a lot more fun! Splitting the costs will make cooking more affordable too.
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Great Thanksgiving Foods to Make Ahead and Freeze
We keep drilling in the idea of making food ahead of time and freezing it. We've even called the freezer our best friend to get the point across. Here are some foods that can be made ahead, frozen and served by simply re-heating, without any real work on Thanksgiving Day.
Appetizers -- crab cakes, dips, dumplings, stuffed mushrooms
Pies -- apple, pumpkin and chocolate pecan pie
Soups -- pumpkin, mushroom, or squash
Breads -- apple, pumpkin or corn muffins (see our recipe.)
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CWF Member Question - How do you freeze a Pie for Thanksgiving?
 This question came from a Thanksgiving discussion last year on the Cooking With Friends Club Yahoo group. Here was the answer we gave:
Freezing pies for Thanksgiving isn't an exact science. Depending on the type of pie, you can freeze a pie before or after baking it. For pumpkin pie we recommend pre-baking the pie. Since it is a flat pie, finding freezer space is generally not a problem. You'll want to make the crust and filling, bake it, cool well and then wrap several layers in aluminum foil and again with an outer layer of plastic wrap. Of course, if you're topping the pie with whipped cream, you'd make the cream right before serving.
If you're planning on freezing Apple Pie or other fruit pies, it's best to pre-cook the filling, assemble the pie and freeze before baking. If your pie has a top layer of crust, you just want to make sure that it's on the top of the other items in your freezer so that it doesn't get crushed. Chocolate pecan pie will freeze really well too - you can partially bake it (half the cooking time), cool and then freeze -- you'll finish the cooking Thanksgiving Day.
One final note about pies - Be sure to bake the pie straight from freezer to oven instead of defrosting it first. It may require a bit more baking time but your pie will retain its freshness.
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Tips on Cooking or Baking With a Friend for Thanksgiving
1) Survey your friends to see who needs to make food for the holiday.
2) Ask someone to cook with you and set a date (or even two). Select dates that are early in November and write the dates down in your calendar.
3) Decide on what you'd like to make together - dessert, side dish or bread?
4) Think about what can be done in advance of your cooking date. Maybe you can make homemade pie dough, or roast pumpkin for a pumpkin pie.
Timing -- Whether you get together several weeks before the holiday or just a day or two in advance, we're sure you'll find that both have their advantages. Many foods can be made and frozen ahead of time and we recommend choosing a few. If you have the luxury of being able to get together with a friend the day before, you can make foods like stuffing or a side vegetable together. While you're at it, you can even arrange a centerpiece for your table.
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Member Tip of the Month
Did you know that holiday cookies can be made in advance, iced and frozen? Jen S., a CWFC member who happens to be an amazing baker too, has developed a system that will keep your iced cookies from sticking together. Here's her simple tip: Once your cookies have been iced and decorated, dry them completely (24 hours is a safe bet) on cooling racks. Once they are dried, lay in an airtight container and place paper towels between layers. Close with a tight fitting lid.
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Tool-of-the-month:
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Multi-Colored Chopping Mats
With seven color-coded mats, this handsome bamboo cutting board is ideal. Not only does it save storage space but it also makes food prep safer. With handy illustrations on each color mat, it's a cinch to keep your foods separate - meat, poultry, seafood, dairy, bread, vegetables - and the mats insert tightly to the board for secure chopping. For cooking dates, they transport easily too! A set, which includes a bamboo board and 7 mats, sells for $19.99 at Costco stores. |
Save Your Carcasses!
Make sure that your helpful guests don't slip the turkey carcass and leftovers into the garbage while helping you clean up. If you calculated right (or wrong -- however you look at it) you should have tons of food left after Thanksgiving to make and freeze great soups and pot pies. It can be hard to motivate to cook alone after such a big holiday, especially if you've hosted a big Thanksgiving dinner. That's why we suggest inviting a friend to cook with you. You'll see how cooking with leftovers becomes not only possible, but fun!
Plan to get together with a friend the Monday after Thanksgiving, bring some turkey stock, leftover meat and veggies and create a wonderful soup. First you will want to make a turkey stock out of the leftover turkey carcass, skin and meat. You can even throw it all in a pot while you're cleaning up Thanksgiving night!
Turkey Stock
In a large soup pot, place all of the bones, skin and some meat from the turkey with onion, celery, carrot, parsley, a bay leaf and 2 teaspoons kosher salt. Let come to a rapid boil and then simmer for approximately 2 hours until stock looks rich. Strain liquid through a sieve and throw away all the turkey and veggies. Bring your stock to a friend's house to make a turkey vegetable soup.
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Alison Bermack and Shannon Henry
Visit our web site at www.cookingwithfriendsclub.com.
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