Tag: bacon

Favorite Thanksgiving Side Dishes

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I am currently persona non grata in my corner of Steubenville. Not because of any advice I’ve been dishing out as of late, but rather because of what I won’t be dishing out next week: Thanksgiving Dinner.

For years, mostly because of the hassle of traveling 1280 miles, roundtrip, on Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve stayed in Steubenville for the holiday and opened my home to whomever didn’t have one that day. One year, that number was as large as 25. Another year, it was as small as four.

A few special friends, however, have always been around the table, and those are the ones  less than pleased about Chris and I going to my parents this Thanksgiving. (His family gets us for Christmas).

I’m looking forward to being with all my nieces and nephews next week, but I have to admit, I’m a little sad too. There’s no holiday I like better than Thanksgiving, and (in all humility) there’s also no meal I cook better than Thanksgiving Dinner. People have flown across the country for my mashed potatoes and stuffing. Some of those people also are under the impression that my gravy is a beverage. (“Just because something has brandy in it,” I tell them, “doesn’t  mean you can drink it.” They never listen.)

It’s not only the company or food that makes Thanksgiving special for me,  though. It’s also the chance to pull out all the decorating stops and set the most elegant table I can muster. In grad school, that wasn’t much. But here’s what we did last year.

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Pan-Fried Gnocchi with Butternut Squash, Bacon, & Brown Butter

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Things are about to get awfully quiet around here. And I’m not going to like it.

Last spring, one roommate abandoned me for San Francisco—something about it offering more amenities than Steubenville. I know: crazy talk. Now, in a little over a  week, my other roommate will abandon me for a small apartment two blocks away (and a bit deeper in the local ’hood). Apparently, she wants to actually live with her new husband after they get married. It happens.

So, here I am, facing the impending winter and a whole lot of quiet. Accordingly, the melancholic in me has been thinking back to last fall, when the house was full up with girls.

Granted, getting all of us in one place sometimes felt like a minor miracle. Between travel, boyfriends, and work, it didn’t happen very often. But when it did, there was always food involved— like the crisp November night, when I decided to investigate what happened when you fry gnocchi in brown butter, then toss it with roasted butternut squash, bacon, sage, and pumpkin oil.

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Roasted Potato, Bacon, and Kale Salad

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It was supposed to be a simple dinner. It was supposed to be quick, easy, and nothing about which I had to fret my little head…which is full up with fret these days because, as usual, I’ve taken on too much work. Supposed to be, supposed to be, supposed to be.

Actually, in one way, it was simple. It was simply a disaster.

Here’s what happened.

Last week, my boyfriend Chris came over for dinner. The original plan was pizza margarita, with some kind of warm side salad. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of using a frozen pizza dough I’d never tried before. Yes, I know I could have made my own dough. Yes, I know that would have been easier and healthier and yada, yada, yada. But I’ve been trying to cook from the overflowing freezer this month, and my roommate had purchased the dough a while back. It needed to be used.

Anyhow, the dough was apparently made with superglue, as it stuck to everything it touched: the counter, the pizza paddle, my hands. I couldn’t move it off the counter in one piece, let alone get it on the pizza stone. It was your basic kitchen nightmare, with sauce and cheese flying and the oven smoking and me crying. Poor Chris.

In the end, after employing a few choice words, I just folded the stupid thing in half, threw it in the oven, and called it strombolli. It was…fine.

But the salad?

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Bacon and Sage Risotto

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You live, you learn. Case in point? The great cookie disaster of 1996.

In December of that year, during my senior year in college, I decided I wanted to show my friends how much I loved them. With Christmas fast approaching, cookies seemed the natural way to do that. So, in my little residence hall kitchen, I baked up batches and batches of the things. Unfortunately for my friends, I  did that baking during the height of the “lettuce and tuna” phase of my life, which means I baked “healthy” cookies…with applesauce instead of butter…and Equal instead of sugar.

Some of those friends still speak to me.

Eighteen years later, I am a far wiser and saner woman. Now, when I want to show my friends how much I love them, I make risotto.

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This little act of generosity is, of course, fine by them. More than fine, actually. That’s because there is nothing that comes out of my kitchen that my friends like better than risotto. They don’t care what kind it is— Sausage and Tomato, Butternut Squash, Lemon and Scallops, Roasted Cauliflower and Pancetta, Spring Vegetables, Seafood, or today’s offering, Bacon and Sage. They eat it all.

The good thing is, there’s also nothing I like cooking better than risotto. When I’m standing over a pot of steaming, bubbling rice, I am Babette, stirring love, not just broth, into the dish.

All food is sacramental—a sign of God’s love and an occasion for grace. But risotto strikes me as more sacramental than most. I think it’s the constant stirring, the constant attention, the constant connection with the food. Cooking risotto demands more of me, and so it ends up giving more of me, more  of my love, to those I serve.

Then, of course, when it comes to this particular dish, there’s the bacon.

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