Twas the night before Christmas...

 

I finished my baking... 

 

 

 

and now I'm waiting for Santa. 

To all of my wonderful blogging buddies and readers, I hope you have the best holiday ever! Enjoy your loot, have a great dinner, but most of all, enjoy your family and friends. 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE!

 

                                                             

It's Christmas In Pioneer Woman Land

Pioneer Woman with Ree Drummond

Christmas

Cinnamon Rolls

PW's Prime Rib with Rosemary Salt Crust

Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic and Cranberries

Duchess Potatoes

Burgundy Mushrooms

Whiskey Cream Sauce

Pioneer Woman has been off my radar for a while. Maybe she left the ranch and moved to the city. She might be living in a condo with wall to wall carpeting and a doorman, for all I know. The kids could be enrolled in ka-rah-TAY and an afterschool art appreciation course to teach them the difference between Giacometti and Grandma Moses.

So I checked out her Christmas spectacular and, no, she’s still on the ranch doing all those pioneering things she likes to do. No Rockettes for her family, just wrangling the cattle…(I wonder if Ladd is going to give the kids a day off on Christmas or if he needs to teach them that on a ranch there ARE no days off. Maybe Ree will add a little festive nutmeg to their 5 am chicory and coffee before they’re sent off onto the plains.)

Ree starts with cinnamon rolls, which she makes with her girls (I guess no male types are allowed to have anything to do with cinnamon buns) and her best friend Hyacinth. They deliver them “around town” wrapped in what looks like bandannas and a big bow. THAT’S a really good idea to use bandannas…except wouldn’t they get all sticky and gooey? Cellophane is probably the right choice for baked goods.

Ree makes the dough by mixing together a quart of whole milk (if someone ever asked for skim milk on the ranch, would he or she be taken back to the toolshed?), a cup of vegetable oil (safflower is always my choice for a tasteless oil for baking) and a cup of sugar heated to just below the boil. She cools it to lukewarm and then sprinkles in 2 packages of yeast and follows that with 8 cups of flour.  

COOKING ALERT! We’re only two minutes in and I have to take a huge exception to how Ree is proceeding:

No matter WHAT the recipe says, I always PROOF my yeast before combining it with loads of flour. In this case, I would heat ½ cup of the milk and 2 teaspoons of the sugar separately and sprinkle the yeast over THAT. I would wait to see if I got a nice bubble out of it and then I’d stir the proofed mixture into the rest of the lukewarm milk, sugar and oil mixture with all that flour. 

If you have a bum packet of yeast, do you really want to start all over with another huge amount of flour and all the other stuff? Definitely not.

Ree covers the bowl with a cloth (a homey-looking cloth, of course) and leaves it in a warm place for an hour.  Now this is interesting, she stirs an additional cup of flour with some baking powder and baking soda into the dough. She says the dough can be used then or refrigerated for up to 3 days.  

Here’s an entertaining site I just found by an opinionated pastry chef (the best kind), who believes that baking powder has no place in cinnamon rolls.  And here is a Q and A about why you might want to add extra leaveners to yeast doughs.

Ree probably never even thought about those added ingredients. It might be just an old family recipe that she is used to using. One benefit of the baking soda and powder is that they would help the dough to rise nicely if the yeast was handled a bit casually.

Ree rolls each half of the dough into 30 inch long pieces.  She drizzles over a cup of butter, saying “If you think you’ve added enough butter, just go ahead and add a little more.”  She smears the butter into the dough with her hands, which is fine EXCEPT that she immediately touches a measuring cup to get one cup of sugar without washing her hands.

Again, with sugar this time, she says to add more than you think you would need. Then she sprinkles over “an eighth of a cup” of cinnamon. That’s 2 tablespoons for those of you who don’t have that size measuring cup -BECAUSE THEY DON’T EXIST!

Another thing - why has she not mixed the sugar and cinnamon together? The only reason I can think of is because she was quite liberal with the sugar, sprinkling it over the edges of the dough AND the work surface, while the much more costly cinnamon stayed mostly ON the dough and wasn’t scattered all over the kitchen.

Ree rolls up the dough really tightly using what she calls “a typewriter maneuver”.  I guess she means that her fingers are constantly moving as she works her way across the dough, rolling it up. She pinches it closed and  places it seam-side down on the work surface. She cuts half inch wide slices and puts them in foil cake pans – about 7 to 9 in each pan. She covers them and lets them rise for 20 minutes.

Oh, listen to what Ree just said. The boys are out with Ladd feeding the mustangs, because, even though it’s Christmas, “The work on the ranch still has to be done.”  I knew it! (Are the child labor laws in Texas or Oklahoma, or wherever she is, particularly lax?)

Ree bakes the cinnamon rolls at 375°F for 15 minutes. She has some nonsensical exchange with her friend, Hyacinth, about bringing the rolls to the “Tulsans” one year and how they “never told us”. Told them WHAT? What is she talking about? Oh, they BOTH took cinnamon rolls SEPARATELY to the “Tulsans” and the people receiving the rolls didn’t mention that they had already gotten them from the other person. That was not worth the paragraph it took to explain that. Plus Ree’s monotone delivery made that less than a riveting story.

Ree makes the frosting next. I guess it’s so thick and sweet, she doesn’t even bother to call it a glaze. She mixes powdered sugar, strong coffee (GREAT for the kids), butter and milk together. She adds maple extract. As soon as the rolls come out, she ices them. They do look fabulous.

Ladd comes in with the kids and they take the rolls to deliver them to folks. Oh, I see, she wrapped the whole foil pan in the bandanna, but I sure hope she covered it with foil or something.

Ree stays behind to clean up (yeah, I’m sure SHE’S really doing that!) and start dinner and she’ll meet up with the others at the town Christmas parade.

Ree takes an ENORMOUS slab of beef from the fridge and cuts it in half, so it cooks more evenly. She sears both pieces while she gets a peppercorn crust ready. She crushes tricolored peppercorns and mixes them with a lot of Kosher salt, chopped garlic and fresh rosemary and thyme. She refrigerates the meat and the salt mix.

Ree tells us that Ladd’s father spends 5 days making fudge every Christmas and Ree is serving that as her dessert.

She moves on to the burgundy mushrooms. She adds tons of button mushrooms to a stock pot with 2 sticks of butter, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, a bottle of burgundy wine and boiling water, chicken AND beef bouillon cubes. Ick. Then dill seeds and garlic go in. She simmers it covered for 6 hours! Then she simmers it uncovered for 3 hours. I’m sorry, I can’t believe that it’s worth all that cooking energy for a pot of mushrooms. Wouldn’t that be a perfect crock pot recipe?

That recipe does not appeal to me at all. It’s probably so salty from the bouillon cubes and Worcestershire sauce and I can imagine that the dill seeds make it kind of bitter.

Next up is the Pawhuska Parade of Lights. That looks like a pretty major parade. Ree leaves early to start dinner. (I was wondering how she could be at the parade at all. The cook usually has to miss all the fun stuff.)

Ree takes the slabs of dead beef out of the fridge. (Sorry, but they are!) She rubs them with oil and applies the salt and pepper crust. I think it’s a shame she used so much salt in the crust, because now all those lovely peppercorns and fresh herbs will be inedible. (I’m not against salt crusts in general. A whole fish cooked under a wall of salt is one of the greatest things around. But you can’t eat the crust.) She cooks them at 500°F for 20 minutes and then she turns down the heat to 300°F for about 25 or 30 more minutes.

Santa (wearing plaid?) comes by, which must mean the end of the parade. Ree is just getting started on the Brussels sprouts, which she says her children love so much that they can’t imagine a holiday dinner without them. How odd. OH, SHE GOT ME!!! She says she’s just kidding and that she’s making them, because SHE loves them. She halves them and sprinkles them with olive oil and salt and roasts them at 375°F for 20 to 25 minutes.

Ree shows us her already made “Duchess Potatoes”. She boiled diced potatoes and then dried them out in the oven. (Frankly, they look really waterlogged and bit overcooked and mealy. If she kept them in bigger pieces and used Ina’s trick of finishing the cooking by letting them sit for 10 minutes in a covered colander after being drained, she wouldn’t have to do that additional step of drying them out.)

Ree puts them through a food mill and then adds egg yolks (many), butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cream. She pipes the mixture into peaked scalloped piles (that doesn’t sound good, but they looked fine) on a baking sheet with a large star tip. She refrigerates them until ready to use. She dabs them with an egg wash and cooks them at 375°F for 20 minutes.

Oh, I guess that wasn’t Santa in the plaid shirt. He’s just going by now and it’s time for the rest of the family to come home.

Ree takes out the prime rib, covers the pieces with foil and lets them rest.

The  party’s in full swing. For a sauce for the meat, Ree adds whiskey (off the heat)  to already caramelized onions. She pours in beef broth and lets it reduce. Then she adds a cup of cream, salt, pepper and a little butter and it’s done.

Ree adds a syrup of sugar and balsamic vinegar to the Brussels sprouts with dried cranberries. Dinner is served and people appear to be eating that salty crust. Ree makes a toast to the Brussels sprouts. No one else joins in. Awkward.

Then it’s time for dirty Santa. That sounds awful. I hope he keeps his pants on. Oh, it’s like a present exchange…where you can steal from each other. Those folks on the range are so droll. I still think the kids could benefit from some martial arts instruction along with a little art history.

Giada's Christmas - A Crumb Crust Made With Cold Butter And Later...Unblanched Kale - What Will She Think Of Next?

Giada at Home with Giada DeLaurentiis

Christmas

Pistachio, Cherry and Chocolate Tart 

Roasted Prime Rib with Thyme and Marsala 

Mashed Potatoes with Kale 

Giada is making Christmas dinner and, oh goodie. Aunt Raffie is back. I suppose she’ll be giving Giada grief as she prepares a California-style Christmas dinner. Nothing says the holidays more than prickly relatives always ready to find fault. 

The house is all decorated for Christmas. I hope Jade doesn’t get too confused when they tell her Santa’s not coming for a while.  I guess they’ll have to explain television shooting schedules before long.

Giada starts with a pistachio, chocolate AND cherry tart with an almond biscotti crust. Do you think there are too many flavors in there? Maybe it should be just a chocolate and cherry tart OR a chocolate, pistachio one. Or how about a cherry and pistachio tart?  I’m reserving judgment on the whole thing, but it seems a bit busy to me.

For the crust, Giada adds the biscotti to the food processor with ½ stick of CHILLED butter, so she can get “a nice texture” to the crust. Hasn’t she done that before? And didn’t I remark that I’ve never heard of a crumb crust made with cold butter? I think so.

I’ve always thought that melted butter gives a kind of greasy feel (in the best possible way) to whatever crumbs you’re using. Maybe cold butter makes it more crumbly and less congealed. I don’t mean to give a melted butter crumb crust a bad name, but it does make the crumbs more oily and compressed than maybe cold butter would. It's definitely worth a try to see what it would be like.

Giada adds the cubes of (cold) butter to the biscotti with brown sugar. It’s interesting that she doesn’t break up the biscotti first. She presses the processed mixture into the bottom of a spring form pan. It definitely looks crumbly and not at all oily. I do need to try that. Giada bakes it at 350°F for 15 minutes.

For the filling, Giada heats up one cup of heavy cream. She measures one cup of chocolate chips into a bowl and pours over the hot heavy cream and stirs it until the chips are melted.  She adds ½ cup dried cherries and ½ cup of chopped pistachios. She mixes it well.

The crust comes out of the oven and is left to cool. (Meanwhile we see Giada’s all white decorated tree). She spreads ¾ cup of cherry jam over the top of the tart crust, leaving a border of one inch untouched. Then she pours over the chocolate, which kind of goes everywhere, including all the way to the edge, which is exactly what she wanted. She shakes the pan to flatten it out and adds another ¼ cup of chopped pistachios to the top. She refrigerates it for several hours.

I’m not saying that that dessert wouldn’t be good, but, between you and me, it seems a bit basic. I love chocolate chips, I love cream, but this super easy combination as a filling for a special occasion dessert seems a bit facile to me.

On to the prime rib, Giada starts by preparing a crust. She mixes together 3 cloves of chopped garlic (with the center stalk still in) with some chopped fresh thyme. Then Giada cuts slits in the top of the tied-up prime rib and “works” the garlic and thyme into the slits. She reminds us to let the meat sit out for 30 minutes before cooking, so it will cook more evenly.

Giada salts the meat (a lot) and peppers it. She cooks it at 425°F for 45 minutes, Then she’ll tent it with foil and cook it for another hour or so. Meanwhile, she puts her table together - white tablecloth, white plates with silver rims, silver cutlery, clear wine glasses, cut glass votive holders, low, red round vases (with cherries inside, I think?) filled with white flowers. Oh, and there are red and green plaid napkins with silver napkin rings. Eh…it’s not sparkly enough for me.

For her last dish of kale and mashed potatoes, Giada peels and cuts up 5 russet potatoes and adds them to cold water. That’s what I do! She says adding potatoes to BOILING water starts the outside cooking faster than the inside. I knew there was a reason I started them in cold water!

Giada adds lots of salt and two cloves of garlic. I DO THAT TOO – I boil the garlic in with the potatoes. I’m not sure if Giada’s going to press them into the potatoes like I do.

Lastly, Giada adds 2 tablespoons of butter to the cooking water to add a silkiness to the potatoes. I think that’s a supreme waste of butter. I also think adding fat before the potatoes are beaten will make them lumpy. Giada boils them for 20 minutes. (Remember Anne's rule of testing potatoes with a fork and not a skewer or toothpick?) I wonder which method Giada will use…And by the way, where’s Raffie? Is she only going to criticize the meal AFTER it’s cooked. That’s no fun!

Giada starts on the kale that will go with the potatoes. First, she chops an onion and some garlic and sautés them in olive oil with salt and pepper. Then she removes the leaves from the kale stems and chops them down. She adds the kale to sauté pan with a bit more olive oil and seasoning and ¼ cup chicken broth. She cooks it for 10 to 12 minutes.

I always think I’m going to regret it if I don’t blanch the kale first. I think you could definitely do that here. Just cut off the stems and cook the kale in boiling water for 3 minutes. Then drain and add to the onion mixture. That’s probably a good idea if you’re trying to make converts to kale.

Oh, Christmas tree update! There seem to be a few – strategically placed – RED ornaments on the (otherwise white) tree.

Giada is mashing her potatoes with a potato masher over low heat. Sorry, but I NEVER do that. I throw the cooked potatoes in the KitchenAid and beat them on low speed for as long as I can. Then I add in the pressed garlic, salt and pepper, milk and then butter. I beat them for ages and they come out silky smooth. I DO use a potato masher to deal with the leftovers and I always mash in a little extra milk as I’m reheating them.

Giada says she’s mashing them over low heat, so that any moisture left in the potatoes evaporates. Smart. But I like Ina’s method of draining them and then covering them with a dishtowel (I use the actual pot I cook them in) and letting them sit for 10 minutes to continue steaming. 

 

We never see how Giada tested the potatoes. Darn!

Giada begins to add ½ cup chicken broth to the potatoes…instead of milk. Then mascarpone and parm are going in too. She adds 1 CUP of room temperature mascarpone. Are we watching Ina? Next ½ stick of room temperature butter goes in. I guess if this were Ina it would be a stick OR TWO. She stirs in ¾ cup Parmesan with more salt and pepper. This all could have been done in the KitchenAid. Lastly she mixes in the kale. That does look good. I guess I might try it with unblanched kale.

By the way, somehow they turned up the sound just as Giada was tasting the potatoes with kale. It made a kind of icky, gloppy sound. So if you’re trying to cook an alluring meal for your partner (or future partner), maybe you should leave out this dish. Kale doesn’t really say romance to me anyway.

Giada brings out the roast from the oven (wearing sparkling white, long oven gloves).

To make the sauce, Giada adds the dripping from the roast to 2 cups of beef stock and one cup of Marsala (the sweet one). Then she adds more chopped fresh thyme leaves and 3 tablespoons of arrowroot. I did not see THAT coming and that sounds like a lot of arrowroot. Giada whisks it in and cooks it for 20 minutes. (Can you cook arrowroot that long? If you were using cornstarch, you’d cook it no longer that 10 minutes, or it would thin out. I thought it was the same thing for arrowroot.)

It’s dinner time and Todd and Giada are putting things on the tree with Jade. They’re all dressed in red. Is that Dakota Fanning at the table? There’s Aunt Raffie, who hasn’t said a word and never came into the kitchen and, Buzz (?), plus some other guy. Oh, there’s an older guy too. The only name Giada uses is Buzz. And Uncle Igor (sp?), who is there and gives Jade a present – A Belle doll. Cute.

I’m not sure this meal really said Christmas to me, but I did try the kale and potato recipe and it was fabulous! I didn’t bother with the mascarpone. I just made my regular mashed potatoes, adding 4 cloves of garlic to the water. I put them through a garlic press and added them back to the potatoes as I beat them, first with milk and then butter. Then I added the whole thing to the sauté pan in which I had cooked the kale for ten minutes. I did add a bit of Parmesan and I totally did not mind that the kale wasn’t blanched first. It was soft and very flavorful.

But I'd still like to know if that was Dakota Fanning at the table.

Orzo As Jambalaya

What do you get when you cross Ina’s Orzo with Roasted Vegetables with My Jambalaya? You get a yummy Chicken and Orzo - Jambalaya Style. (If you can think of a better name…I’m listening).

I had recently made (and made up) a jambalaya for visiting friends, which I really liked. Why didn’t I take a picture? Sorry.

Shortly after that, I needed a recipe for the night before Thanksgiving for 10 people, but one that could sit if it had to. I didn’t want the jambalaya (with rice) to be left too long, so I took Ina’s idea of orzo - with roasted vegetables with a lemon dressing - and jambalaya’ed it up with spicy chicken, Andouille sausage and shrimp. I like it because it can be served just-made OR various components can done in advance and put together when the chicken is cooked.

This picture was taken moments after the first servings were doled out. Sorry...again.

A big plus was that I had a real bonus of a wine to serve with it. My great blogging buddy, Tom (a wine professional!) had given me this great bottle of wine a while ago and I was saving it. 

 

It was great with this dish, spunky enough to stand up to the spice and smooth enough to go down easily. And yay, only three of us were drinking red wine.

Now PLEASE don’t discount this recipe because it LOOKS long. This is all you do:

·         Cook the orzo.

·         Cook chicken, shrimp and Andouille sausage separately.

·         Roast vegetables separately.

·         Throw it all together with equal parts of lemon juice and olive oil.

That’s it! (There IS a really quick spice mix to be made, but you can do that with your eyes closed and way in advance.) 

Chicken and Orzo - Jambalaya Style (serves 10)
Printable recipe here

Cajun spice mix:

2 tsps. paprika

2 tsps. organo

2 tsps. thyme

2 tsps. chili powder

1 tsp. Kosher salt

¼ tsp. cayenne pepper

¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

16 large shrimp, peeled

3 large chicken breasts with skin and bone, cut in half widthwise

6 chicken thighs with skin and bone

2 red onions, chopped into ½ inch pieces

2 small yellow squash, chopped into ½ inch pieces

2 small zucchini, chopped into ½ inch pieces

3 carrots, peeled, quartered lengthwise and chopped into ½ inch pieces

2 garlic cloves, center stalk removed and pressed

2 tbls. olive oil

1 tsp. Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

the dressing:

½ cup fresh lemon juice – save the lemons after squeezing to add to the chicken while it’s cooking

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

½ tsp. Kosher salt

2 chicken Andouille sausages (I like Trader Joe’s), halved lengthwise and sliced on the diagonal

2 boxes of orzo

2 scallions, finely chopped

1/2 cup finely chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 425° F.

Mix together ingredients for Cajun spice mix. Set aside 2 teaspoons and coat the shrimp with it in a small bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use (later on). 

In a large mixing bowl, sprinkle remaining Cajun spice mix over chicken pieces. Coat well. Add used lemon halves to chicken.

Line a large sheet with foil and spray with a nonstick spray. Toss the red onion, yellow squash, zucchini, carrots, red pepper and garlic with the olive oil, salt, and pepper on the baking sheet. Roast for 40 minutes, until browned, turning once with a spatula.

Arrange chicken and leftover lemon halves in roasting pan or baking dish, sprayed with nonstick spray. Cook in same oven as vegetables for about 30 minutes or until nicely browned. Or cook when the vegetables come out. Using tongs, squeeze juice from cooked lemon halves over chicken.

Meanwhile, mix up lemon juice, olive oil and salt for dressing. Set aside. Cook orzo according to package instructions. Drain and put back in pot in which it was cooked. Immediately pour a few tablespoons of the dressing over and mix well.

When vegetables are cooked, add them and any juices to orzo. Add any juices from cooked chicken to orzo as well.

Spray a bit of nonstick spray in a medium nonstick frying pan. Sauté Andouille sausage over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes on each side until browned. Stir sausage into orzo with scallions and ¼ cup chopped parsley. Add more dressing to coat the orzo nicely. Taste for seasoning.

Cook shrimp in a tablespoon of oil over medium high heat in a large nonstick frying pan for one minute or until seared nicely. Cook second side of shrimp for another minute.

To serve, spoon cooked orzo with vegetables and Andouille onto large platter. Arrange chicken pieces on top and place cooked shrimp around edge of dish. Spoon a bit more dressing over chicken and serve the rest separately. Sprinkle with remaining chopped parsley and serve. 

And The Winner Is…

Nancy Mosher, who gets two great Maida Heatter baking books – Maida Heatter’s Cakes and Maida Heatter’s Cookies. I'll be contacting you, Nancy.   

Thanks to everyone for your entries. 

  

One More Day To Win TWO Fabulous Maida Heatter Cookbooks

 

RULES:

Maida Heatter’s Cakes and Maida Heatter’s Cookies Giveaway contest open until Friday, December 2nd, 2011, 11:59 pm eastern time. The prize is both of these wonderful Maida Heatter cookbooks.

Enter these ways:

1) Send a comment to this post, OR to THIS post (I don’t mind which), telling me your favorite cake or cookie. (Include your email address, if your name doesn’t link to it.) 

2) Send me an email with Maida Heatter in the subject line telling me your favorite cake or cookie at FNMusings@gmail.com.

3) Tweet your favorite cake or cookie to me at http://twitter.com/SueonFood with the hashtag #MaidaHeatterGiveaway. Don’t forget the hashtag if you’re tweeting your entry.

Enter as many times as you wish with a separate favorite cake or cookie in each entry. Each comment, email or tweet counts as one entry. The more times you enter, the greater your chances of winning. Contest open to US residents 18 years old and above.

Thanksgiving Wrapup – The Good, The Bad And The Soupy

   Thanksgiving 2011   

A small (actually, a very large) problem cropped up days before Thanksgiving. For unexplained reasons, my Whole Foods only had turkeys in the 14 pound range or ones over 22 pounds. I’ve had a long standing rule of never cooking a turkey over 20 pounds. They’re just too hard to handle, they take too long to cook and they’re really tough to turn upside down after cooking. 

But I had a big crowd and lots of houseguests, so I really didn’t have a choice. I got a 22.68 pound turkey.

For whatever reason, it was one of the best turkeys I ever made.

Here's Tom, before he got turned upside down.

It browned beautifully. And it took less than 5 hours to cook. (Somehow, my turkeys always take less time to cook than whatever I’ve calculated.)

We started with my new favorite dip combination – hummus and tzatziki with lots of goodies on top:

Where's my soup? I forgot to take a picture. It was goooood. 

I tripled my stuffing recipe and had only about a quarter cup left when I deemed it no longer ready for primetime (or eating) on Sunday night. 

 

  

Three out of four of the pies were quite good. (Am I allowed to say that?)

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

Sour Cream Apple Pie

Pecan Pie

But the last one, the cherry pie, had real problems. When I was considering which cherry pie to make, my smart friend, Tom, pointed out that the reason cherry pies usually have a lattice crust is so that some of the juice can evaporate. 

I was trying to avoid another latticed pie, because my apple pie had one, but I relented when I saw a pretty good (I thought) recipe in the Bon Appetit Desserts Cookbook, which I’ve been thrilled with every time I’ve used.

Cherry Pie

The resulting cherry pie LOOKED okay, but it was way too soupy. Think of something at the opposite end of the texture spectrum from Comstock Cherry Pie Filling, which (between you and me - and you better not tell anyone) I love. But I would never serve it (in public), and I especially wouldn't at Thanksgiving.

I think what I would do next time is to get the cherries already thickened BEFORE they are put into the pie crust. I DID like that the recipe called for a thicker lattice than I usually do. I think ¾ inch makes a more definitive statement than some little namby-pamby ½ inch lattice.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 

I had some inventive young men around (with very strong appetites) who made turkey sliders after Thanksgiving. These were NOT hot turkey sandwiches. They were cold sandwiches with hot gravy installed on them. This was done in a most unlikely way in the form of the slightly repulsively named Moist Maker, which found fame from Friends.

The Moist Maker is a sponge-like piece of gravy-soaked white bread which is stacked between the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberries. (I don’t like any other starch on my turkey sandwich but the bread. To me, mashed potatoes are meant to be eaten hot and stuffing is slightly gratuitous on a sandwich.) But here are various versions of day-after sandwiches, which illustrate exactly how much can fit on a little roll.