Nov 27 2008
Meatballs Not Butterballs
A few years ago I tackled cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t my first time but I haven’t cooked enough turkeys to feel all that experienced with them.
I shy away from cooking Big Meat. Big Meat is intimidating. Whole turkeys. Roast beef. Prime rib. Pot roast. Rack of lamb. Ham. Anything with a big bone sticking out of it.
I have done meatloaf. But that’s just forming lots of small meat into bigger meat.
That year I called up my mom to talk about what I was going to cook. Mom has particular tastes – not spicy, not sour, not tart. She likes simple: sweet or salty, moist over dry.
She’s my food antithesis.
I’m describing what I plan to stuff the turkey with and she says, “I don’t like bread stuffing.”
“You don’t? I thought you did.”
“No. Nuh-uh. I like sticky rice.”
“Sticky rice?”
“Yeah. I loooove sticky rice.”
At the time I had no idea how to cook sticky rice or more specifically, Chinese Sticky rice, a very tasty dish with dried Chinese sausage, slivers of mushrooms, tiny dried shrimp, maybe some onions.
Most Chinese do this sticky rice instead of bread stuffing. So I searched for recipes and emailed friends and relatives who I thought may know how to cook this.
“And I don’t like pumpkin pie.”
“You don’t? But I’ve seen you eat it.”
“Only if there’s nothing else and there’s whipped cream.”
“Oh.”
“And turkey…it’s okay. Just that it’s kinda dry. Needs gravy.”
When I call up her brother he says, “Don’t really care all that much for pumpkin pie.”
Turkey was nice, my sticky rice was not too bad and my uncle and mom left with lots of leftovers.
Last year I skipped the whole turkey thing and went straight for the favored sticky rice paired with my no-fail Bourbon chicken dish.
This year I’ve decided to skip the whole bird thing and go straight for my Traditional Thanksgiving Spaghetti.
As my uncle said when I invited him, “It’s all about the family.”
So this Thanksgiving, mom, my uncle and I will be passing the Parmesan.
How about you?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Parmesan is better anyway!
Happy Thanksgiving from Mexico!
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
My daughter was sick…so we didn’t have a turkey dinner. I threw one of those Crock Pot Chicken & Dumplings meals in and had Thanksgiving dinner in bed as we watched TV together.
Ohhh yes … me like. I NEED to add Tobasco though, do you mind??
I notice that some take offense to “spicing up” the food the prepare. Would you, MsQ?
Laughing at you shying away from the BIG meats with a bone sticking out … in a NICE way. To elaborate, it just sounds so …. well, MsQ’ish. How about a giant rack of ribs – 4 foot wide?? Ha haa!!
I like the “It’s all about the family” comment. That is so true. You could have made anything really, and the day would have been special. Unless you made taco pizza – that’s for the crazy. ((I love taco pizza))
The ad up there by this post is for gravy. Ohhhh yeah baby!!!!! Me lika the gravy wavy. It is a fact that cardboard tastes great with the right gravy …. “and HOT SAUCE”
YHAAAAAAAA HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
~ have any leftovers? ~
Sketti bo betty skapettio mo gettio pahh sketti … noodly ooodally boodally budahbelly rubbin noodally pahsketti
You do any shopping today? …. NO?
Me neither.
Just work, then pie. I do NOT like pumpkin (shaking head)
meleah: Happy Thanksgiving to you!
Ginger: Sorry your daughter was sick but that was a wonderful moment you shared – when she said, “Mommy, thank you for taking care of me.” after you put a cool washcloth to her forehead.
Speedy!! You can make-a the meatballs as spicy as you like! I took a little poetic license though – I didn’t make meatballs. I like spicy but my mom doesn’t so..adding spicy Italian sausage to the sauce was OUT.
Giant rack of ribs – eeek! I’ve cooked ribs thought, beef and pork. Been a while though. I used to pork ribs with black bean sauce. Yummmm. Chock full o’ fat but sooooo tasty. And the greasy bean sauce, whoof. Melt-off-the-bone!
I was asking a Vietnamese guy what he was doing for T-day. I asked if his family did something similar to mind – the turkey with Asian side dishes like sticky rice. He said no, their traditional T-day dinner was KFC!! I rarely eat KFC but it is good. I specially like their biscuits. Avoid-avoid!!
I actually did some shopping – online! I wasn’t planning to but of course all the stores I shop at send out email specials and I clicked on their special just cuz and there were some pretty good specials – stuff I’d looked at in the past but wasn’t going to pay that much for, that was fer sure. But take 20-30 bucks off and throw in free shipping? Now you’re talking!
You don’t like pumpkin pie? It’s not my fave either. I’m more of an apple pie person if I have to eat a pie.
…. I HAVE one more chunk of apple pie in the fridge!
Next year, I want to join the Vietnamese family at KFC
I was so happy this year because Thanksgiving was at the new digs. There can NEVER be too much turkey leftovers. Razor keeps wanting to make casseroles and turkey salad and whatever and I’m all, “What?!?!?! Can’t we just eat it directly off the carcass? ” I’m not a big meat eater usually, but I do love dead bird on Thanksgiving!
I also LOVE pumpkin pie. Normally the only desserts I’m interested in are ones with chocolate. But I make exceptions for creme brulee (brule? brew-lay?
) and pumpkin pie. I mean, pumpkin pie is almost health food I figure, what with eating all that squash.
I always make a cranberry nut bread on Thanksgiving. It being our first Thanksgiving together, I dragged Razor into this whole canned vs. fresh cranberry sauce debate.
I can’t understand why someone would eat ANY food out of a can when fresh is available, much less cranberry sauce which takes no time at all to make. But he’s used to the canned I guess. And when I realized I was getting way too emotionally invested I decided to mix the homemade sauce in with the canned.
After all, I had to so *something* with the extra cranberries from the bread. Maybe I can wean him over the years. 
Hope you had a great thanksgiving! Sounds like you must have!
I love my mother’s pumpkin pie, but since she kicks the spices up, most other pumpkin pies are bland. (Is that air I’m chewing on?)
We do have one off the wall tradition – we do the feast on Wednesday. It’s from when we used to take vacation, and go off somewhere. Eating on Wednesday gave us an extra day to eat the left overs. The more we ate, the less there was to take home.
On the cranberry thing – my mother loves the jellied cranberry sauce you get out of a can. Sure, you can probably make it yourself with cranberries and such, but it’s so darned cheap for one little can, that I don’t think it makes sense for a small gathering to try to make that yourself. However, I love a orange-cranberry relish she started making a few years ago. So, she does both.
With the left over turkey, we make turkey enchiladas, totally on the easy and cheating way, using salsa to mix with the turkey meat. It’s not too much work, and we all love it.
The sticky rice sounds very interesting.
I spent my Thanksgiving with my mom in the early evening. Later that night, I went to hang with The Orange Phoenix and a couple of our friends. We had a potluck dinner. It was great. A lot of fun… drinks and playing a bunch of games.
Glad you had the time with the fam.
Jill: “Can’t we just eat it directly off the carcass” hahaha! I know what you mean about nibbling off the bones or carcass as you wrote. When I’ve had the carcass, I seldom do anything more than maybe sandwiches and when most of the meat is gone, I may make soup.
I’m okay with pumpkin pie and I also feel it’s pretty healthy compared to other desserts! I used to loove creme brulee and for whatever reason, don’t anymore.
Cranberry nut bread ? Yum! When it comes to cranberry sauce – it took me a loooong time to get used to the idea of what looked like jello being added to meat. So..mint sauce on lamb was also a bit of “what’s up with that?” HOWEVER, a friend made fresh cranberry relish and maybe it was cranberry-orange and yum! Not on meat thought. But she said it was really easy to make so I can’t imagine buying the red wobbly thing.
Good call on not getting emotionally invested. Razor may not only be used to it, but it may have a family/comfort thing associated with canned sauce so…
My T-day was nice! I sent my uncle home with the leftovers and he called me a few days later saying he just finished the last batch of sauce and noodles and he was so surprised at how good doctored up sauce was! He’s gonna try my ‘recipe’!
ack: What does your mom add? Extra ginger? Your family tradition sounds like a great way to manage the leftover situation plus..extend that holiday feeling! I can imagine your turkey enchiladas! Sounds quick ‘n easy!
UT: yeah, that sticky rice is a good dish. Someone said that our choice for comfort foods are created during childhood and I know that sticky rice is a comfort food but..mac ‘n cheese, not so much (didn’t eat that until maybe early 20s!) I figured out an easy way to make it -it may not be quite as tasty as the more step-intensive version but it’s pretty tasty.
I don’t think she add ginger as i don’t recall the recipe calling for any ginger. probably just increasing the amount of the spices (nutmeg, allspice, etc.) that go into it. Also, I’m pretty sure she uses fresh ground nutmeg instead of the kind that’s already ground up. It’s got more zing to it that way.
The turkey enchiladas are totally quick and easy. Turkey, salsa, shredded cheese, cans of sliced black olives, can of enchilada sauce, and corn tortillas. I like to hold back some of the olives to sprinkle on top, but didn’t mention it to Mom before she dumped them all in. No big, I just like the look with some olives on top.
Funny thing you mentioned about comfort food & mac-n-cheese. I know I didn’t have it until my 20’s, but not so much until I got out on own and working. Now, it’s a bit of a comfort food, even though I didn’t have it during childhood.
ack: I thought the recipe called for ginger – I’ve made semi-scratch pump-pie (as a friend calls it) using canned pumpkin and adding the evaporated or condense milk and spices. I googled and one recipe called for ginger. Dunno all the rest but ginger does add the kick and “bite.” I likes ginger from the candied to the pickled pink stuff (gari) they server w/sushi.
Your turkey enchiladas sound yum!
I feel pretty lucky in that my comfort foods have changed to some type of low-fat/low sugar type of food. I used to like cookies and desserts for comfort foods..now..oatmeal or some type of rice/noodle thing works and not the cheesy greasy versions.
But I sometimes get awful hankerings for chips ‘n salsa..
Just got home, checked out the recipe on the can label we still have, and there’s ginger on it. So, looking over that now, i’m sure she put some extra ginger in it, but i’m sure she also adds nutmeg. (it was one of the things she asked me about before coming over here.) I also saw cloves & cinnamon. she might add allspice since she had asked about it, but i’m not sure.
Chips and salsa rocks! I eat that every once in a while, usually horking down the whole bag in one sitting. (but I didn’t last time. damn. now i need to try to keep from going after the rest of that bag of chips now before dinner!)