Stuffing and Rolls and Rice

As a young child, I was deprived of stuffing...I don't believe my grandmother ever made it, and my family has a lot (A LOT) of food allergies, including a wheat allergy running rampant. While I escaped that, it meant that stuffing was not really around. I may have had it first in high school. This makes me sad, in retrospect, but at least I can eat it now. But, as a consequence, I have no childhood image or taste in my mind of what stuffing is supposed to be. I'm fairly happy with StoveTop, but I had some Target-brand stuffing a few weeks ago that was really really bad and turned me off of boxed stuffing. I ended up combining two recipes, one from the Minimalist, and one from Simply Recipes. I think I made enough changes to call it my own. As will become clear, I am sort of adamant about very traditional stuffing, with no excess things in it.

Out of Deprivation, Stuffing (or, "Sorry, Sister! Wild Rice is very good also! Stuffing")
1 gigantic loaf of french bread
1 smaller loaf of semolina bread, both bought a few days before cooking
giblets and neck from turkey, or chicken broth, probably
2 onions
butter
tarragon
rubbing sage

Simmer giblets and neck for an hour in water. Pour out liquid and reserve. Throw giblets away on grounds of being icky. Simmer neck in a new pot of water indefinitely/until tender/until gone since you've picked at it so much. Turkey neck is excellent. From liquid, decant most of the fat.
While innards simmer, cut the bread into cubes. It should be slightly stale. Spread out in pan and put in oven at 350C or so until more crunchy. Melt butter in pan and throw in bread cubes. This took me two go-rounds. Let bread cubes get toasted on a few sides. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large pot and saute chopped onions. Add bread cubes and some of the stock, tarragon and sage. Stir. Cover and periodically add more stock (and bread cubes, if they didn't fit in the pot the first time). Take off heat after an hour. When ready to serve, spread out in pan again and cook at about 350C until warm and slightly crisp. Stuff self.

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The rolls were super-easy and could be made up to 2 hours in advance and kept in the fridge. My, and your, favorite part is grating frozen butter. The recipe is from Baking Illustrated, of course. As my roommate ate three of them, they evidently turned out well.

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As I mentioned earlier, my family usually has wild rice instead of stuffing, so we made some from a box too. I only bought one box, which I sort of thought would be okay since we wouldn't be eating the recommended serving size, what with all the other food, but then I reconsidered and wanted to buy more, but then forgot. Short story, I should have bought more. Also, due to flat surface limitations by the end of the evening, the rice cooker went on the floor, all lonely.

Yams and Potatoes

Yams and potatoes could probably carry most of the meal, along with maybe some turkey and stuffing. Candied yams MUST have marshmallows on top because it is a) delicious and b) tradition. I think Mom (the standard to which this entire meal is compared) usually gets the yams from a can though, and I have determined that that part is not tradition. So, I cut up the giant yam that resembled a seal and two or three smaller yams, wrapped them in foil and threw them into the oven on a baking sheet at 425C. I glanced at these two recipes for guidance, but mostly for cooking times and general ingredients. I poked at them with a fork to test for doneness, then let them cool slightly, easily peeled off the skins, cut into slightly smaller chunks and threw into the fridge. When I was ready to throw them in the oven again, I think I melted about 3-4 tablespoons of butter, stirred in 1/4 cup of brown sugar, a dollop of Vermont! maple syrup and some shakes of cinnamon. I then mixed all that with the yams and threw them into the oven, 350C-ish for about 20 minutes. Threw on marshmallows and cooked about 5 more minutes until brown and about ready to fling themselves out of the bowl. For the mashed potatoes, I (meaning my sister) peeled nearly 5 pounds of potatoes, cut them in half and threw them into a large pot of boiling water. They took forever to cook, and then I (meaning my sister and my roommate's sister) mashed them with butter and milk and salt and pepper until they "tasted good. Don't you know what mashed potatoes are supposed to taste like? Add more butter!" (verbatim transcript)