This luxurious bread is filling enough for breakfast, light enough for an afternoon snack, and is also perfect for the neighborhood potluck–especially during December when you hopefully have some cranberries left in your freezer. (If not, run to the store now and see if there are any left.) While it begins as a simple pan of down-home banana bread, the festive additions –cranberries, white chocolate, and walnuts– make sure it ends up anything but.
For how long are those leftovers edible?
It’s all over but shouting. Hopefully you gave thanks with the best of them and enjoyed a feast fit for you. If the shouting turns out to be what goes on a day or two after Thanksgiving when you get on the scale, no worries. You’ll not eat like that again for…oh, probably a month. Meantime, you’re back to your regular life and my guess is those extra couple of ounces–ok, pounds–will jump right back off the scale in a few days. And if they don’t? Salad and soup for a week could fix it. So how about some soup?
More Time’s Apple-Pear-Cranberry Pie
More Time’s Thanksgiving Basics and Organization
More Time’s Thanksgiving Starters, Soups, and Sides
More Time’s Vegan and Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Buffet
More Time’s Cranberry Thanksgiving or How to Get the Kids Involved
Baking at Thanksgiving. It’s a big deal to some people and a late afternoon stop at the grocery for others. Perhaps because often folks are cooks OR they’re bakers and rarely both. The pumpkin pie may have all the memories the turkey never garnered and the homemade yeast rolls and butter just might be why your grandson shows up. On the other hand, it could be all about the dressing, gravy or even the ham at your house where no one looks twice at dessert. I once brought turkey and dressing to a summer potluck, where a close friend refused to eat a bite. When I asked why, she said, “You didn’t make gravy. I don’t eat dressing without gravy.” She truly had some serious food traditions and it’s not unusual. Listen to your friends and family talk about Thanksgiving and you’ll see.
Thanksgiving is a bit like a wedding for many cooks. Something old, something new, something borrowed… Wait, is there something blue at Thanksgiving? Oh well. Lots of folks have to have their favorites. The thing it’s not Thanksgiving without, right? What is your “must have”? I hope it’s on your or someone else’s cooking list.
In the fall, I find myself with a big stack of magazines...all about Thanksgiving and Christmas. (I’m keener on the Thanksgiving batch.) You may harbor the exact same addiction. Each issue sports a great big turkey or chocolate cake with white curls and candy canes on the front. I keep them from year to year so I can go through them just for fun. In fact, I buy magazines in November and December that I never buy the rest of the year. This may be changing a bit as lots of publications that appear to be magazines are actually small cookbooks for ten or twelve bucks lately. Wow. Continue reading
Looking for Thanksgiving posts on More Time? Basics/Organization. Starters, Soups, Sides. Gluten Free+Vegan Thanksgiving (Baking post in process–coming up soon.)
If you’ve been following the blog, you’ll know I have a stack of much-loved French cookbooks that are surely the stuff of which dreams are made…well, at least my dreams. I’m not as much of an armchair cookbook reader as some, though there is always a stack next to my reading chair–even at Christmas. Maybe especially at Christmas. (List of said books upcoming on a blog page. I promise.)
I spent a good deal of my life working for cash and life fulfillment as 1. a librarian and 2. a church music director. (I taught piano, too, on the side.) Both jobs, and I sometimes held them at the same time to make ends meet, helped fuel my love of cooking because libraries have cookbooks and church choirs love to eat.
Pike’s Place Market, Seattle
It’s an odd thought, but Thanksgiving is overwhelmingly vegetarian. I mean, think about it. Except for the turkey, everything is basically and definitely vegetarian (or appears that way); even the gravy and the stuffing could be if you so wanted. Mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, buttery rolls, pumpkin pie; it’s all on that side of the equation. Skip the turkey or duck-duck-goose stuff, as well chicken broth in the various sides, and there you’d be at a nearly totally vegetarian meal.
Thanksgiving Baking on More Time