For this recipe, I wanted the brussel sprouts to be the star.  Doing so would help to keep the dish lighter.  For those who like heartier dishes with more of meat focus, the amount of sausage definitely can be increased.  In fact, I know that my husband used the leftovers from this dish with extra sausage as a hash for breakfast one morning.

This dish has a wide appeal to it.  It makes a fabulous Christmas dish with the combination of green and red ingredients.  For smaller appetites or multi-course meals, it makes a great entrée.  For those who like a heartier dinner, it could be served as a side dish.  Finally, it is a quick to prepare dish, ready in under thirty minutes.

Brussel Sprouts & Sausage

1/3 lb. Italian sausage
1/2 lb. brussel sprouts, quartered
1/2 Tb. olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
salt & pepper
parmesan cheese

Bring a medium-sized pot of water to boiling.  While waiting, heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat and add sausage. Sauté until fully cooked; then remove sausage to a paper-towel lined plate.  Once water is boiling, add brussel sprouts and boil for 5-10 minutes until barely tender.  Drain.

Coat a clean, nonstick pan (unless you enjoy the taste of sausage grease) with olive oil and place over medium heat.  Sauté onions for 5 minutes, adding red pepper during the last minute.  Add brussel sprouts and sausage, and sauté for another 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Transfer to plates or serving dish and top with desired amount of parmesan cheese.

While there is nothing wrong with continuing traditions, it also is nice to infuse some creativity into the meal.  To help with this I am sharing two different vegetable dishes from talented chefs.  Both include classic Thanksgiving ingredients, winter squash and pumpkins, and should receive rave reviews.  Why not give one a try?

Pumpkin Bruschetta

Executive Chef Eric Klein of Spago

1 loaf ciabatta bread
chorizo, removed from casing
1 15-oz. can pumpkin purée
ricotta salata, grated
cranberry chutney
honey

Preheat grill pan or frying pan over medium heat.  Slice ciabatta into 1/2-inch thick slices.  Grill for 1 minute per side or until golden brown.

Crumble chorizo into pan, and grill until slightly crispy.  Remove to a paper-towel lined plate.

Take one slice of ciabatta and top with a rounded tablespoon of pumpkin purée.  Top with one teaspoon of ricotta salata and one teaspoon of chorizo.  Finish with a dollop of cranberry chutney and a drizzle of honey.

Savory Butternut Squash & Herb Crumble

Chef Rachelle Boucher of Standards of Excellence Appliances

4 lbs. squash (approx. two small), peeled and cut into ¾-inch cubes
4 Tb. olive oil, divided
1/2 cup shallots, sliced
2 Tb. fresh parsley
vegetable or chicken stock
salt and pepper
nutmeg
1/2 cup flour
1 Tb. sugar
1 tsp. fresh thyme
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter
2 egg yolks
3 tsp. ice water

Toss the squash with olive oil and place on parchment-lined sheet pan. Roast in convection oven at 375° for about 25 minutes until browned and soft (400° in a conventional oven). On the cook top, sauté the sliced shallots with 1 tbsp. olive oil until translucent. Toss squash and shallots in a large bowl, add parsley and stock, season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg; mix and divide into small buttered dishes or a medium-sized baking dish. Cover with foil and bake until tender about 25 minutes.

To make the crumble, put flour, sugar, thyme and salt into a medium bowl; stir and add cold butter, mixing with your fingertips to resemble coarse meal. Keep the butter cold! Whisk yolks with ice water and add to flour until just combined, adding just a bit more water if needed. Refrigerate squash and topping.

Before serving, divide topping over dishes and bake again for about 30 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

With these four fabulous stuffing recipes from which to choose, it makes planning the Thanksgiving menu a little more difficult.  Of course, at our house, we’ve been known to make two different stuffings, so that will help a pinch with our decision making.

Wild Mushroom-Hazelnut-Cornbread Stuffing

Ruby Dee Philippa, author of Ruby’s Juke Joint Americana Cookbook

1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms
2 cups hot water
1-1/2 lb. cornbread or egg bread, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
6 Tb. butter
4 cups leeks, chopped
1 cup shallots, chopped
1-1/4 lb. crimini mushrooms, sliced
1/2 lb. shiitake mushrooms, sliced
2 cups celery, chopped
1 cup parsley, chopped
1 cup hazelnuts, chopped
3 Tb. dried thyme
2 Tb. dried sage
1/2 lb. apples, chopped
1 cup dried cranberries
2 eggs
3/4 cup broth

Combine hot water and porcini mushrooms in small bowl. Let stand until mushrooms are soft, about 30 minutes. Drain, reserving the liquid, and chop coarsely.

Preheat oven to 325. Bake bread cubes on sheets until golden brown, turning once, about 15 minutes. Cool and transfer to large mixing bowl.

Melt butter in heavy Dutch oven on medium-high heat. Add leeks, shallots, and other mushrooms and sauté about 15 minutes until golden brown. Add celery and porcini mushrooms and sauté additional 5 minutes. Add to bread mix in bowl.

Add parsley, hazelnuts, spices, salt & pepper, apples, and cranberries. Toss evenly. Add eggs just prior to stuffing the bird. Mix to coat evenly.

Stuff bird and place remaining stuffing in a buttered baking dish. Add 1/2 cup porcini broth and additional broth if necessary. Cover with foil and bake about 30 minutes. Uncover and bake additional 15 minutes, until slightly crunchy on top and browned.

Cornbread Stuffing with Fresh Figs, Morels, and Foie Gras

Anthony Sicignano, Executive Chef of The Breakers Palm Beach

4 cups cornbread croutons
1 stick unsalted butter
¼ cup Spanish onion, finely diced
½ cup celery, finely diced
1 small carrot, diced
1 cup fresh morels, cleaned and cut lengthwise
½ lb. pan-seared foie gras, cut into ¼ inch slices
2 Tb. fresh sage, chopped
2 Tb. parsley, chopped
1 cup fresh figs, cleaned & cut into eighths
1 cup chicken broth
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add onions, celery, carrots and morels and sauté until tender. Add hot chicken broth to the skillet. In a large bowl, combine croutons, sage, parsley, figs, and sliced foie gras. Slowly add the vegetable liquid to the bowl while gently tossing the crouton mixture. Adjust seasoning with salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

Place this mixture in a lightly buttered casserole dish and bake at 375 degrees until stuffing is golden brown.

Serves 6.

While I didn’t enjoy missing these amenities, the outage gave us a chance to spend more family time.  Instead of Tapas Monday, we had a candlelight dinner with the kids.  After dinner, our evenings were spent playing board games and card games.  (As a side note, trying to determine if a card is blue or green in Uno is quite hard via candlelight.)  Of course, when the power returned on Wednesday afternoon, we were excited to have normalcy back.  To celebrate its return, I made a pumpkin cake for everyone and scheduled a dinner of Tapas Wednesday for my husband and me.

A simple tapas dinner seemed the best plan, especially with a slice of pumpkin cake as the finale.  With vegetables from our weekend trip to the farm stand that withstood the power outage nicely, I had the basis for different dishes:  cheesy poblano peppers and sweet potato latkes.  Not only did my husband and I enjoy the latkes, but so did our daughter.  This recipe made quite a few, and she was able to sample a few as a leftover a couple nights later.  Although she usually prefers a white potato to a sweet potato, she enjoyed the latkes, even asking for seconds.

Sweet Potato Latkes

2 sweet potatoes, peeled

2 Tb. whole wheat flour

2 scallions, chopped

salt & pepper

1 Tb. olive oil

Shred sweet potatoes using a coarse setting.  In a large bowl, combine shredded potato, flour, and scallions.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Scoop a heaping tablespoon of potato mixture, and form into a patty using your hands.  Place in frying pan, repeat with remaining mixture, until your pan is full but not crowded (about 6 latkes).  Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until golden brown.*  Cook for an additional 2-3 minutes, and transfer to a serving plate.  Repeat forming and cooking latkes until all mixture is used.  Serve immediately with sour cream or ketchup.

*Flip carefully, as these latkes can fall apart easily.  Also, resist checking too often, as that will interfere will a golden crust forming. 

For the next three weeks, I am going to do something different.  Each week I will be highlighting Thanksgiving recipes from over a dozen chefs.  While I have my own recipes for family classics, it seemed even better to offer a wider range of options for your menu planning.  This week I will be featuring several different stuffing recipes.  Not one of these is your basic bread, celery, and onions combination.  Each one has its own unique ingredients that will make your stuffing one to remember.

I hope you enjoy reading all of these recipes as much as I have.  Though I do think with so many great options, choosing the dishes for Thanksgiving dinner may have become even more difficult.

Wild Mushrooms Bread Stuffing

Executive Chef Bryan Hulihee of Roaring Fork in Scottsdale, Arizona

1 loaf of focaccia bread, chopped

1 cup of shiitake mushrooms, chopped

1 cup of oyster mushrooms, chopped

1 cup of Portobello mushrooms, chopped

1 stick of unsalted butter

3 white onions, diced

4 large ribs of celery, diced

5 garlic cloves, minced

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

¾ cup of heavy cream

½ cup of turkey giblet stock

1 cup of grated Parmigiano Reggiano

½ cup of chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in the middle. Generously butter baking dish. Put bread in two shallow baking pans and bake, switching position of pans halfway through baking, until just dried out, about 10 minutes. Heat one tablespoon of oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat until it simmers, then cook half of mushrooms, stirring and breaking it into pieces until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a large bowl, brown remaining mushrooms in remaining tablespoon of oil. Transfer to a bowl. Pour off fat from skillet and wipe clean. Heat butter over medium heat until foam subsides, then cook onions, celery, garlic and ½ teaspoon each of salt and pepper, stirring occasionally until golden brown. Add vegetables and bread to mushrooms. Whisk together eggs, ½ cup of cream, turkey stock, cheese and parsley, then stir into stuffing and cool completely (about 30 minutes). Reserve 5 cups of stuffing to stuff turkey and spoon remainder into a baking dish. Then drizzle with remaining ¼ cup of cream. Cover stuffing and bake for 20 minutes.

Multi-grain Rice Stuffing

Chef Dale Talde of soon to open Talde in Brooklyn, New York

3 Tb. butter

1 onion, diced

3 ribs celery, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

8 oz. bacon or Italian sausage

2 cloves garlic, minced

8 oz. chicken stock

1 egg

1 Tb. sage, chopped

1 Tb. thyme

1 Tb. Italian parsley

4 pkg. of Annie Chun’s Multi-grain Rice

2 oz. parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a sauté pan, melt butter and cook Italian sausage or bacon. Once sausage or bacon is 80 percent cooked, remove from pan and reserve. In the pan add onion, garlic, celery, bell pepper, and cook until soft. Then add Annie Chun’s rice, chicken stock, chopped herbs, and cook till well mixed. Next, remove rice mixture and add to a baking pan. Add sausage/ bacon and egg. Mix and top with cheese, then place into preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes until top is golden brown. Serve.

As we had eaten a late lunch, we planned on having dinner around 8:00.  Around 7:00 we noticed our lights begin to flicker, and I decided to start our side dishes, Rosemary Spaetzle and Balsamic Brussel Sprouts, a little earlier.  That was a good choice.  Less than ten minutes after all of the food was done cooking the power went out. . . and it didn’t return until yesterday afternoon. Of course, while we were enjoying our dinner on a blanket in front of the fire, we didn’t realize that the next four days would be spent without power, so a candlelit house had a romantic feel to it.

My choice of Rosemary Spaetzle was one of convenience.  I had made spaetzle only once prior to this, but on this evening I realized I didn’t have all of the ingredients I needed to make polenta.  Thinking of a simple replacement that had a more gourmet feel than rice, spaetzle came to mind.  With the miniscule amount of ingredients needed and the simplicity of cooking, I am surprised that I haven’t made this dish more often.

I will admit that the technique I used to make the spaetzle is not proper form.  Instead of running the dough over a colander to make the little pieces, I rolled the spaetzle into a thin log and cut it into smaller pieces.  However, this difference in technique did not affect the taste or texture of the finished product and seemed much easier.

I look forward to trying more variations of this recipe in the near future.

Rosemary Spaetzle

3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp. salt + more for boiling

1/4 cup milk

1 egg

2 Tb. fresh rosemary, minced

butter

Fill a medium stock pot with water, season generously with salt, and bring to a full boil over high heat.

In a large bowl combine flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Add milk and egg, and stir well to combine.  Continue to stir and add rosemary.  Using a floured surface and hands, roll dough into a skinny log, about 1/2″ diameter.  (Depending on the size of your workspace, you may need to divide the dough into 2 logs.)  Cut the log into 1″ pieces.  Place half of the spaetzle pieces into the pot at one time, and cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Remove from pot with slotted spoon, and place in serving dish.  Top with 1/2 tablespoon butter.  Repeat with other half of dough.

This past weekend was dedicated to freezing cauliflower, broccoli, and eggplant and canning two more batches of tomatoes.  With a bushel of tomatoes on hand, it was easy to determine one of the ingredients for our Friday night dinner.

Friday’s dinner also had a little inspiration from our daughter, the vegetarian.  Almost a year into this lifestyle, we have a number of meat replacement items in our house.  One of those is a faux ground hamburger.  Personally, I enjoy almost all of the meat replacement products (faux bacon being the exception).  This faux burger works well, especially when combined with other ingredients.  It has a texture similar to hamburger, and while missing a strong meaty flavor, it adapts nicely to the other flavors in the dish.  Plus, this faux burger has one-third the calories and less than a third of the fat in 95% lean hamburger.

Our kids had social plans for Friday night, so dinner was just my husband and me.  Both of us (even my slightly more carniverous husband) found the stuffed tomatoes to be delicious.

Stuffed Tomatoes

3 tomatoes, halved & pulp removed

2/3 cup faux hamburger

1/3 cup feta

1 garlic clove, minced

salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400.

Place tomatoes, cut side up, on a baking sheet.  In a small bowl, combine burger, feta, and garlic.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Spoon filling into tomatoes.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.

I made this dish as part of last night’s Tapas Monday menu.  Served with crostini topped with tomatoes from our garden and fresh mozzarella, it made for a wonderful dinner of nibbling.  The only negative to the zucchini dish was that the zucchini at our local farm were on the narrow side, which means that there is less space to holding the filling.  In fact, this recipe made more filling than required.  However, if you have a spouse such as mine, I’m sure that he or she will be glad to eat the remaining filling straight out of the pan while waiting for the zucchini to finish baking.

Sausage Stuffed Zucchini

2 medium-sized zucchini

1 Tb. olive oil

1/2 white onion, diced

2 garlic & herb chicken sausages, diced*

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated

salt & pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Remove ends from zucchini, and cut in half lengthwise.  Place zucchini in boiling water, and top with a plate to keep them submerged.  Boil for 4 or 5 minutes, or until slightly tender.  Place zucchini in an ice bath for 2 or 3 minutes to prevent further cooking.  Place on paper towels to drain.  Carefully remove seeds and filling, leaving a quarter to half inch shell.  Dice zucchini filling.

Heat a nonstick frying pan over medium heat.  Coat pan with olive oil, and add onions. Sauté for 5 minutes, then add sausage.  Cook for an additional 5 minutes.  Add garlic and diced zucchini, cook for 1 minutes, and remove from heat.  Sprinkle with 1/4 cup parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 350.  Place unfilled zucchini halves on a baking sheet, and cook for 5-10 minutes to eliminate extra moisture.  Remove pan from oven, and fill zucchini with sausage mixture.  Top with remaining parmesan cheese.  Bake for 15 minutes.

*Other types of sausage, such as Italian, can be used to replace the chicken sausage.  However, some sausages are uncooked and will need longer cooking times.  Please read sausage packaging carefully.

I have served zucchini in numerous forms:  zucchini cakes (both as a savory appetizer and as a sweet dessert), grilled zucchini, mashed zucchini, and stuffed zucchini.  That is just the beginning of the list.  One item that I had not made previous to last week’s Tapas Monday was Zucchini Fries.  However, it seemed like the perfect dish to add to our menu, as it was a finger food and relatively light for the summer.

I was suspicious as to how successful this recipe would be.  Zucchini, in my experience, tends to become mushy with heat.  Plus, I have had mixed results with making oven-baked fries.  Regardless, I like trying new recipes, and my husband isn’t finicky, so it seemed worth a try.

The excellent news is that the zucchini fries were delicious!  The breading had a delightfully crunchy texture, which paired well with the tender filling.  While the zucchini technically may have been mushy, the crisp coating seemed to balance it so well, that it appeared to have more of a tender quality.  The only change I would make is to create a dipping sauce that is more exciting than ketchup.

With a month or two of zucchini season ahead of us, I am sure we will be making these again.

Zucchini Fries

2 medium zucchini

1/2 cup flour

salt & pepper

1 egg

1 whole wheat sandwich thin

1-1/2 tsp. dried basil

Preheat oven to 425.  Coat a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray.

Cut zucchini in half lengthwise.  Cut each half into matchsticks that are no more than 1/2″ x 1/2″ wide.  Pour flour into a shallow dish, and season with salt and pepper.  Crack egg into another shallow bowl, and whisk.  Blend sandwich thin (or other bread) to create breadcrumbs, and pour into a third shallow bowl.  Add basil to breadcrumbs.  Dip each zucchini strip into the flour, coating all sides; then dip into egg; then dip into bread crumbs.  Place coated zucchini strips on baking tray.

Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven, and flip zucchini strips.  Return to oven for an additional 10 minutes.  Eat immediately.

With a love for these vegetables, I try to share it with my children.  I understand that kids aren’t supposed to adore vegetables, but I also know that exposure can help them to develop an appreciation for these veggies.  Last week I decided to provide them with another opportunity to enjoy beet greens.

As they were early season beet greens, they were smaller and quite tender.  With a cold and rainy day on hand, serving them warm seemed like the better option.  Who could resist a serving (even if it’s “no thank you” size) of warm greens that have been seasoned and have some flavorful ingredients joining them in the dish?

The honest answer is that this dish may not have been a favorite for our thirteen year old.  However, she did eat her serving without complaints, which could be considered a minor victory.  Our fifteen year old enjoyed it as much as my husband and I did.  Perhaps three out of four isn’t bad.

Warm Beet Green Salad

1/2 Tb. olive oil

1/2 yellow onion, sliced

6-8 crimini mushrooms, sliced

1/2 lb. beet greens

balsamic vinegar

salt & pepper

Heat a large, nonstick frying pan over medium heat.  Coat bottom of the pan with oil, and add onions.  Sauté for 5 minutes, or until tender.  Add mushrooms, and cook for 2 minutes.  Add greens and sauté, tossing frequently for even cooking.  Once greens are tender, about 2 minutes, remove pan from heat and sprinkle with vinegar.  If desired, season with salt and pepper.