Ina Garten | Barefoot Contessa How Easy Is That? | Clarkson Potter, 2010 | Makes 24

I came across these very British crackers in London—a savory shortbread made with Stilton and walnuts. I make extra rolls of dough and freeze them unbaked so I can just defrost, slice, and bake the crackers before guests arrive. Everyone loves these and there are never any leftovers!–Ina Garten

LC Sippy Sip on the Side Note: We can think of nothing lovelier as a precursor to dinner than these crackers. Well, okay, a little lovelier would maybe be these crackers and a generous pour of  a not-too-wimpy red wine or a modest dose of port.

Active time: 15 minutes | Total time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Stilton and Walnut Crackers Recipe

Directions

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A Spoonful of Promises | Lyons Press, 2011 | Makes 1 loaf

Like many young people who swallowed their fairy tales whole, it took me a long time to come to terms with the pumpkin as something to eat. It was a place for Jack Sprat to keep his wife. It was, if you believed Cinderella, an effective substitute for a cab so long as you didn’t stay out too late (a bit like the Brooklyn-bound F train). And its hollow grin lit our steps, like everybody elses’s, once a year, inviting the Headless Horseman to reclaim his cranial property.

The pumpkin is a storybook creature, a thing of tall-tale size and magical properties. But in the stories, does anyone eat the pumpkin? Never! People eat rampion from the witch’s garden. They eat pomegranate seeds and get stuck in the underworld for half the year. They make soup out of stones. But who eats a pumpkin?

Our family didn’t. Every year we bought the one pumpkin, for Halloween, but it was every bit as likely to turn into a coach-and-four as materialize on the dinner table.

Very often, kids find the idea of eating pumpkin grotesque. The problem isn’t the taste so much as the texture. It’s pretty much the same problem they have with zucchini and eggplant and okra—the squishiness, the stringiness, the lingering film in the mouth. And no amount of magical thinking will convince them otherwise.

If you want to make children eat pumpkin, you have to wave your wand and conjure away all its texture failings. If you can make the pumpkin more like a bread and less like a vegetable, you’ll be in business. Even friendlier to kids is the pumpkin muffin, especially with a scattering of pumpkin seeds on top. Either is a cakewalk to throw together, especially if you happen to have some pumpkin purée around.

How do I know pumpkin bread is that good? During the fall when I was pregnant with my daughter, Zoe, I happened to walk through a food court where pumpkin bread was being sold. I gorged myself shamelessly, eventually transforming the bread (and various other snacks) into nine plump pounds of baby girl. “Hello there, Pumpkin Seed,” my husband whispered on the day she was born, cradling her chubby swaddled self in his arms. When she looked up at us, her face was perfectly round, and that’s the way it stayed until she was about three. Pumpkin bread has staying power.

Today Zoe is a sturdy preschooler, with cute-as-a-button pigtails and a smile more mischievous than a jack-o-lantern’s. She adores pumpkins to look at, to decorate, and, yes, to eat. Her favorite story is Cinderella. Her favorite movie, Rodgers and Hammerstein‘s musical version. Her favorite CD, its soundtrack, which she sings to herself in a heart-piercing jumble (“Impossible! For a plain yellow pumpkin a prince to join in marriage…Impossible! For a plain country bumpkin to become a golden carriage…”)

I doubt the pumpkin bread was to blame. But who knows? After all, truth is stranger than fiction.–T. Susan Chang

LC Hey, About That Leftover Canned Pumpkin Purée… Note: We like this subtly flavored, not overly sweet, pumpkin quick bread. A lot. So much so that we’re not even annoyed that it calls for precisely nine ounces of canned pumpkin rather than the entire 14 ounces typically contained in a can. What else are you going to do with that extra canned pumpkin left from last Thanksgiving?

Actually, lots of things. Before you toss those extra five ounces in the trash in frustration, consider stirring them into risotto, as our recipe tester Sandy “I Can’t Stand to Waste Food” Hill thought to do. Or mash them with some baked sweet potato and butter. Blitz ‘em with a banana, milk, honey, and ice for a slurpy breakfast. Swirl ‘em into slightly thawed ice cream. Or moms, sneak the pumpkin into some mac-n-cheese  or meatballs. All of you, we know you have more inspired solutions, so let us know how you put that pumpkin to use…

Active time: 20 minutes | Total time: 2 hours

Pumpkin Quick Bread Recipe

Directions

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Homemade Pumpkin Purée Note

• There’s nothing wrong with canned pumpkin purée, other than that it lacks a bit of poetry. But it’s easy to make pumpkin purée yourself. You just cut a little sugar pumpkin in half and bake it in a 300°F (149°C) oven until it submits. Spoon it right out of its softened shell, or, if you’re a stickler for smoothness, throw it in the food processor. The whole thing takes maybe an hour, and it makes your house smell totally mythic.

It was our first Thanksgiving in the country, having given up our rent-controlled apartment in New York City. We’d planned a quiet celebration alone—until good friends called that Wednesday. They, too, wanted a country Thanksgiving. With their teenagers. Suddenly, a twosome with a turkey breast morphed into a sixsome with a whole bird. We ran to the store, fought the crowds, and stocked up on everything—including one of the last frozen turkeys. Not surprisingly, it still wasn’t thawed by the next morning.

Did we panic? Not on your life. Because we knew that a frozen turkey—whether partially or even fully—can’t stop Thanksgiving dinner. Delay it a little, yes, but not deter it.

There are two solutions to this disaster. Which you choose depends on how much effort you want to muster and how much time you have to sit around and sip some wine while you wait.

More Effort, Less Time. Peel off the wrapper and place the bird in a bowl big enough so you can submerge the entire thing in cold tap water. Do so. Set your birdish aquarium on the counter. Swap out the stagnant turkey water for fresh cold water every 30 minutes or so until the turkey is thawed, about two hours for a 10-pounder, up to six hours for a 20-pound mutant. (Don’t worry. The cold water will keep your turkey-in-a-bowl from turning into a petri dish.) Dig out the giblets and neck. Stuff, slather, and roast as your recipe directs.

Less Effort, Even Less Time. Unwrap the bird-cicle, plop it in a roasting pan, shove it in a preheated oven, and don’t look back. Surprised? Don’t be. Even fully frozen turkeys can be roasted without thawing them. That much meat, that much insulating bone, that much skin—it’s not like it’s a gimpy little game hen.

We went with the latter, if only because we wanted to put the effort into making a second pie. (Two teenagers.) But when doing the freezer-to-oven trick, bear in mind these caveats:

• Add up to 50% additional roasting time. Dinner may be a little late. Deal. Just don’t be tempted to crank up the oven’s temperature past 350°F (176°C). Fully frozen birds roast best at 325°F (163°C), in part because the slow, low roasting approach means the breast meat doesn’t dry out before the thighs are done.
• Tent the bird loosely with foil should the skin start to look less like Jennifer Lopez and more like George Hamilton.
• Don’t forget to dig out the frozen giblets. After thirty minutes, use long-handled tongs to try to pull them out of both openings. If unsuccessful, try again at the one-hour mark. Still unsuccessful? If the giblets roam free or are in a paper bag, you really needn’t remove them at all. They’ll leave a reddish sludge in the roasting pan, although you can toss them—and said sludge, as well as the pan juices—before you carve the turkey. But if the giblets are in a plastic bag, they must be removed before the bag starts to melt. Should you discover this too late, default to an all-sides dinner—or takeout Chinese.

Of course, you can avoid any Thanksgiving day shenanigans by allowing the turkey ample time to thaw. A 12-pound bird takes about three days in the fridge; a 16-pound bird, about four days; a 20-pound bird, about five days. In all cases, set the turkey on a large rimmed plate or a roasting pan to catch those inevitable drips.

One last note: prestuffed frozen birds should only be roasted right from their frozen state. Unwrap them and follow the package directions. Not, of course, that LC readers would ever buy a prestuffed frozen turkey.

Click here for Thanksgiving Disaster 2: The Bird’s Too Big for the Oven

Or do you?

Let’s do a cost-benefit analysis on that monster fowl.

Pros

•  You’ll have drama—the quintessential Norman Rockwell moment with the groaning platter.

Cons

• You’ll need a big roasting pan. A really big one. Probably bigger than anything you own. And forget those flimsy throw-away aluminum pans. They’ll never support a bird that big. You may need to tap into your IRA for this little investment.
• You’ll need a big oven. Really big. Plan on using the rest of that IRA to remodel your kitchen.
• You’ll need to start early—and not just on Thanksgiving day. A 22-pound bird can take five and a half days to thaw in the fridge, give or take a few hours, and up to eight hours to roast.
• You’ll only have two legs and one wishbone. And don’t forget, much of that will be sacrificed because Aunt Jezzie must do her Henry VIII impersonation—year after year after year.
• You’ll need a back brace because big birds are notoriously difficult to lift. With the IRA gone, you’ll need to take out a loan not just for the brace, but for a bigger serving platter.
• You’ll need condiments besides the gravy. Lots of them. Because big birds dry out faster than small ones as they cook. (A 20-pounder doesn’t have double the interstitial fat and lovely collagen as a 10-pounder.)

Given such overwhelming cons, what should you do?

Easy. Skip the behemoth and buy two 10- to 12-pounders. They’ll roast more evenly, offer you twice as many legs and wings, and turn out significantly more succulent. You might even consider slathering each with different concoctions: make one a Frenchified, tarragon-chives-and-butter fandango, the other an Italian, oregano-rosemary-and-olive oil epiphany.

But before you do, be sure to measure your range as well as your roasting pans to make sure you can accommodate two birds side by side in your oven. If you’re out of luck—this probably means you live in a small apartment with a half-size stove—simply roast one turkey the day before, stick it in the fridge, then reheat it under foil on Thanksgiving day while the second bird rests and you serve the first course. If it’s still not hot, the hot-from-the-oven bird will take care of the first go-round; save the second for, well, seconds. Or you do the unthinkable and divvy up the bird, roasting part of it and braising the rest.

No matter what, make sure you have the right equipment before you start: roasting pans, racks, carving knives, cutting boards, fat separator. After all, would you go to war without a gun?

Click here for Thanksgiving Disaster 3: The Bird’s Roasted—But Still Raw

The pop-up timer popped. The majestic Thanksgiving turkey is burnished brown. The drumstick jiggles. Brandishing a carving knife, you smugly take the first slice from the thigh—and then you see a trickle of pink. You rub your eyes, thinking surely it must be your imagination, and then look again.

No, it’s real.

Can you play dumb and pretend the darn thing isn’t slightly underdone?

Count your guests. Count your bathrooms. There’s your answer.

Here’s what went wrong:

• You relied on the plastic pop-up thermometer. This pathetic little device is ridiculously unreliable. As has been made abundantly clear by now, there’s no such thing as better living through plastics.
• You went by appearances, which can be deceiving. Didn’t dating teach you anything?

So. What to do?

Calmly put the bird back in the oven. Tent it with foil to insulate the sliced portion. Open another bottle of wine. Wait. And next time you check for doneness, use a meat thermometer, so you know for sure rather than guessing. We prefer the instant-read variety, rather than the kind with the long, dangly cord that stays in the oven and purportedly beeps when your bird is done. With the instant-read, there’s no cord to stick out of the door and allow even a smidgen of heat to escape. You’re looking for that moment when the thermometer reads 165°F (74°C). And be sure to check the bird in two, maybe three, places. Here’s where to poke:

The thigh. This tends to be the thickest, juiciest part of the turkey. If this is done, chances are the rest of the bird is done, too. Set the bird in its roasting rack on top of the stove so that the drumsticks are pointing away from you. On each side of the bird, note the large pillow of meat just under the drumsticks. Those are the thighs. Hold the probe end of the thermometer parallel to the drumstick and insert it into the center of the thigh meat, parallel to the drumstick. Push it in deeply—though not so deeply as to touch bone. If you strike bone (you’ll know if you do, as there’ll be unmistakable resistance), pull the probe out and try, try again. Hold the probe there until the temperature stabilizes, 5 to 10 seconds. Even if you read 165°F (74°C), take the temperature in the thigh on the other side, too, just for safety’s sake, before you breathe a sigh of relief.

The breast. If the turkey’s over 15 pounds, one of those bulked-up wonders we warned you about, you should check the breast as well as the thigh. The thickest part of the breast. This is far easier to find than the innermost thigh. It’s right in front of you, found up top, back from the legs. Insert the probe about halfway between the center breastbone and the drumstick, right into the juicy hump of meat. Push the probe in without forcing it. Again, avoid the bone.

The stuffing. The stuff you cram in the cavity isn’t necessarily done when the bird is; it most often takes longer. For one thing, it’s bathed in raw bird juice—which also needs to get to a safe temperature. For another, it may have eggs in it—which need to be cooked enough to get rid of any nasty pathogens. So it, too, needs to register 165°F (74°C). Insert the probe into the thickest part of the stuffing, far into the large opening of the bird. If the stuffing is still under temperature and the bird is browning too much, tent the bird loosely with foil until the stuffing is safe, too. (Don’t let us catch you trying to scoop out the stuffing into a baking dish and shove it back in the oven while you let the bird rest. It’s way too much hassle to try to get the stuffing out while the bird’s beastly hot without tearing the skin or otherwise damaging the bird. This also lets you bring the big, stuffed bird to the table for your own personal Rockwellian moment. Or just consider making the dressing outside the bird, not stuffing inside, yielding so many crunchy corners in the pan to be picked and pecked at in the kitchen while no one’s looking.)

And don’t worry about poking the bird more than once. It’s a myth to say “all the juices will run out.” Some will. About a half teaspoon per hole. If that’s all the juices in your big bird, you’ve got more problems than mere temperature. And don’t mind all the puncture marks. If they really bother you, carve the thing before you get it to the table.

Finally, refrigerate any leftovers fairly quickly. Within an hour of dinner, the bird should be back in the fridge. Otherwise, you’re back to counting bathrooms and guests.

Click here for Thanksgiving Disaster 4: Transferring the Bird to…Oops!

The table is set. The guests are gathered. You’ve planned for every possible contingency. But you forgot one thing. Your sleek, chic, trim Tom Cruise of a Thanksgiving turkey will eventually morph into a sweaty, bulky, out of balance, downright gawky John Goodman of a hen by the time it comes of the oven. And you somehow have to get it from the roasting pan to the carving board while decked out in your holiday finery.

Before you commence with the heavy lifting, a few things to cross off your checklist:

• Let the bird rest for 20 minutes in the roasting pan—mostly so the juices slip back between the protein fibers, but also so the thing’s not quite so scalding hot.
• Place the roasting pan as close to the carving board as possible. Don’t even think about attempting a pas-de-deux-de-turkey trot across the kitchen floor.
• Shoo the children out of the kitchen. Likewise, any pets. A dog on meat patrol? A recipe for disaster.
• Get a helper. One whose sole job is to steady the carving board. And who knows how to shut up. Don’t choose your cousin who’s just finishing his Master’s thesis on George Eliot.
• Think back to high-school physics. (See, it did come in handy.) One point under a mass creates a fulcrum. In this instance, that equates to a turkey teeter-totter. Two points beneath a mass afford far better stability. Got it?

Next, take measure of your bird. Is it stuffed or not?

Unstuffed
We’re not in favor of turkey lifters, hooks, or other contraptions for toting birds. They tend to be flimsy or afford only a single point of contact.

And we’ve seen a bird trussed with butcher’s twine in such a fancy, convoluted way that it included a looped handle for picking the thing up. We’ve also seen that bird on the floor.

Complicating matters is the fact that open-cavity birds collect a pool of scalding hot juices while roasting, which tend to spew at inopportune moments. You’ll need to tip out the juices carefully into the roasting pan after you hoist the bird but before you can safely transport it. Okay, now that you’re armed with that warning, you can proceed. Our preferred methods of transport? Any of these:

• Put on silicon oven mitts. (Silicon is heat-resistant. Cloth isn’t.) Grasp the bird with both hands—that is, two points of contact. Tip it slightly to empty the hot juices into the roasting pan. Both ways, as there are two openings. Then lift it over the edge of the pan while your helper holds the board in place.

• Use clean kitchen towels as you would oven mitts. Fold them double for more protection. Grasp, tip both ways, and transfer. Keep the towels away from the openings, as the cloth will absorb the hot juices.

• Insert a small rolling pin or the handle of a sturdy wooden spoon into the large opening. Insert the handle of another wooden spoon into the small opening. With these two points of contact, lift the bird. Tip both ways, then transfer the thing to the board.

Stuffed
Things are a little more complicated with a stuffed bird. You could first spoon the mushy goodness into a serving dish while the bird is still in the roasting pan, thereby allowing you to rely on any of the above turkey transport options.

Or you could leave the stuffing inside and intact, provided you’ve first checked to make sure it’s not a bath of juicy, eggy pathogens. Use silicon mitts or clean towels to grasp the whole dang bird and get the centerpiece of the meal to the carving board. But you’ll risk some of the stuffing plopping into the pan and getting coated in gunk. So, in our opinion, spoon it or lose it.

Oh, and if your board doesn’t have a channel around the edge, roll up paper towels and place them around its perimeter, right up against all four sides. They may not be good for the environment, but they’ll absorb the turkey-juice tsunami that may ensue, making clean-up a snap. Chances are you were in the kitchen all day. You don’t want to be there all night, too.

Click here for Thanksgiving Disaster 5: One Oven, 4 Burners, 124 Recipes

Thanksgiving is probably the most denial-inducing dinner party that you’ll pull off all year. The way your dad’s new girlfriend keeps asking your mom if she’s sure she didn’t play against Mary Pickford in a movie. The way you’re reminded that you didn’t go to the college your parents wanted. The way your aunt tips the scotch bottle right to her lips.

And beyond those personalities at the table, you have one oven, four burners, and what seems like 124 things to cook at once.

To head off any problems—at least the predictable ones safely situated in the kitchen—you’ve got to confront things straight-on. Trust us. Think strategically long before the big day and get OCD for this one meal and you’ll understand the boon in being a realist. Once you’ve got the details down pat, you can begin to actually appreciate those personalities at the table. And maybe even knock back a little scotch with your aunt. Though not necessarily in that order.

Bottom line? The time to be realistic isn’t Thanksgiving morning. It’s long, long before.

Avoid Oven Overload.
Will you be able to pull off the turkey, a gratin, a sweet potato casserole, and that mac-and-cheese for your niece in your one oven that doubles as a sweater drawer the rest of the year? Probably not, both because of oven space and the sheer insanity of the day, not to mention each recipe seems to require a slightly different temperature. Better to consider these sorts of things a week ahead of the meal as you’re planning your menu rather than that fateful morning. And remember when you’re scribbling out your flow chart of what happens when, that the bird needs to rest for 20, maybe even 30 minutes. That means you’ve got time to crank up the oven and finish off the sides before you sit down.

So fill in your menu with make-aheads, things that can be cooked several days in advance, like some vinegared veggie hors d’oeuvres. You can assemble a gratin or casserole the night before, then bake it off first thing Thanksgiving morning, before the turkey hits the heat, then reheat all sides in that precious time while the turkey is resting before carving.

Consider serving a few cold items, such as relishes, slaws, and salads. Maybe a grated carrot salad rather than roasted carrots? We’ve got a terrific cold cranberry relish that can add depth of flavor to the meal—and can be made several days in advance. The only trick? Just don’t forget to serve it.

And there are always room-temperature dishes. Like a cheese plate for starters. And if you do decide to roast those vegetables, bear in mind, they suffer little from being served barely warm.

Last, always consider dessert a make-ahead dish. Period. Pies and cakes can be made the day before and stored on the counter. Don’t be caught rolling out a crust as everyone’s enjoying the first course. Or go really simple and round out the meal with fruit of some sort. Or even cookies.

Look, too, for alternative ovens: the microwave, that toaster oven, your outdoor grill. Did your neighbors go out of town for the long weekend? Consider offering to plant-sit so you can snag their oven. (Just remember to turn it off and clean it up. Explaining why their house burned down is so awkward.)

Make Space for Dinner—And We Don’t Mean Skipping Breakfast on Thanksgiving
Eat down the fridge the week before. Or, if nothing else, clean it out, ruthlessly tossing anything that’s nonessential. Those Thanksgiving make-aheads and leftovers have to go somewhere.

Requisition other venues as pantries. Your bedroom? Not any more. Now it’s an annex to the pantry, containing the overflow of cans and packages that don’t need refrigerating. Ditto any spare shelf space in closets. Even your car can hold paper towels and napkins.

Default to your patio or deck for cold storage if you live in a chilly climate. Stash things out there the morning of, if not the day before, keeping an eye on the temperature to make sure it stays below 40°F (4°C). Unfortunately, our house in the woods is prone to furry well-wishers, so outdoors isn’t an option. But a big cooler filled with ice in the laundry room works just as well as a makeshift second fridge.

Before the queue for the dishwasher gets as long as the checkout line this time of year, use the appliance to hold bread, cans, and other provisions. Some intrepid entertainers even warm the bread in there by wrapping the loaf in foil and setting the machine on the dry cycle only. (This seems to invite an “I Love Lucy” moment, but the fearless apparently walk among us.)

Your tub makes a great giant ice bucket to chill wine and beer. Just remember to warn anyone who goes in there first. A big bathtub of ice? They might think they’ve dropped into the noir version of your life, the one you keep so carefully hidden.

Plan on Getting Done at a Reasonable Hour.
The day’s not over until you’re in bed. Consider these options:

If you’ve used a cooler beforehand, dump it out and fill it halfway with warm, soapy water. It’s now a place to stash dirty dishes while they wait their turn in the washer.

Those leftovers have to go somewhere. Invest in resealable glass or plastic containers for leftovers. And in big rolls of plastic wrap and aluminum foil so you can plan on sending some food home with your guests. It’s fun to squirrel away meals for the days ahead. But will you really eat four pounds of sliced turkey? We didn’t think so. Better to wrap it up and send it away than to find the beginnings of a meth lab in your fridge a week later.

Click here for Thanksgiving Disaster 6: Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen!

Friends pestering us in the kitchen with offers of help was never an issue when we lived in Manhattan. No one ever asked. Not because New Yorkers are inherently rude. Because our kitchen was only four feet wide—that included cabinets and appliances. You couldn’t stand in front of the oven and open it at the same time. If Sylvia Plath had lived in our apartment, she’d be alive today.

But after we moved to the country, we were barraged with culinary well-wishers. Apparently an open kitchen stands as an open invitation.

Look, we’re not unfriendly. We’re just focused. To us, entertaining begins once we get away from the stove and can sit down and settle in for some good food and conversation. Before that, there’s stuff that needs to get done.

Even if you’re more amiable than we are, certainly you can understand why offers of help aren’t always welcome. Here, a few tricks we tuck up our sleeves for keeping people out of the way:

• Hand out discreet tasks. Tasks that take the helper OUT of the kitchen. Such as, “Would you take care of any flowers or gifts that show up?” or “Would you open the wine bottles?” or “Would you man (or woman) the music?” Even “Would you pass the hors d’oeuvres?”
• When you set the table early in the day, leave small things for later so that someone else can feel useful. Don’t put out the wine glasses. Or the napkins. Do, however, stack everything that’s needed neatly on the counter or sideboard, far out of your way, and be ready with specific instructions.
• Give insistent helpers noxious tasks to shoo them off. “Can you take out this bulging bag of dripping, greasy trash?” and “Would you mind walking the dog? Here, you’ll probably need a few, um, bags.” or even “Can you help me find the toilet plunger?”

That said, you might be the type who likes a group event in the kitchen. If so, consider a few ways to wrangle the herd of well-intentioned—or know-it-all—do-gooders:

• Break the recipes into small, doable tasks for your sous chefs. Chop the onion (demonstrate what size chunks you need, if you’re finicky, otherwise this is only going to create more work and frustration for you). Mince the garlic (ditto). Stem the thyme. By the way, you’ll need to clear some counter space and reserve several cutting boards.
• Copy or print off the recipes. You can’t all share one book, dog-eared magazine, fingerprinted laptop, or greasy iPad.
• Label your cabinets. Sounds waaaaaay OCD, but it’ll save lots of frustration. Just think, a few discreet Post-its will keep you from repeatedly answering “Where are the glasses?” or “Where are the knives?” Plus these’ll help when it comes time to clean up, as there’ll be no guessing where the casserole dishes go—or where they went.

And because we like to say to ourselves after a dinner party that we’re done and in bed before our guests are even home, we’ve developed an efficient process of clean-up that starts soon after we clear the first course:

• Make sure you stock up on dish-washing soap, sponges, and the like before the holiday.
• Run the dishwasher between courses, for what we think are obvious reasons.
• Wash in sequence. Don’t do a fork, a glass, a plate, a fork, a spoon. Wash the silverware at one go, then the glasses. You can establish a flow—and fill or drain the sink as needed.
• Finally, offer distinct clues that the party’s over. (And no, you’re not nixing offers of help by shooing people out the door, because most people—aside from your mother—tend to skedaddle anyway as soon as dish towels appear.) Turn up the lights. Turn off the music. Turn up the heat. If all else fails, go upstairs and put on your PJs. Ask your uncle if he still wants the government out of his Medicare. That never fails to clear the room.

Cook this Now | Hyperion, 2011 | Makes one 9-inch pie

I never thought to simmer down maple syrup until it turns thick, viscous, and extremely maple-y until I made Bill Yosses’s maple ice cream recipe. Yosses, the pastry chef at the White House and a good friend of mine (we wrote a cookbook together), reduces the syrup to eliminate as much of the water as possible, which gives the smoothest, silkiest textured ice cream imaginable, with an intense maple flavor. He also recommends reducing maple syrup for any recipe in which you want an extremely vibrant maple character.

After trying his amazing ice cream recipe, I began to think about what else might benefit from reduced maple syrup’s profound caramel sweetness, and came up with pecan pie recipe. The problem with most maple pecan pies is that the maple becomes shy and quiet in the company of all those assertive toasted nuts. Simmering down the syrup, I hoped, would help it hold its own. So I tried it and it worked beautifully, with the sweet maple in perfect balance with the nutty pecans. It became my go-to pecan pie technique for years.

Then one Thanksgiving, I decided to add a layer of complexity to the pecan pie by infusing whole spices into the maple syrup while it was simmering. I chose star anise because I thought the sharp, woodsy fennel flavor would add an unexpected nuance to the classic combination of maple and nuts. That’s just what happened. My pie was warm and licorice-y from the anise, toasty from the roasted pecans, and as syrupy, sugary, and toothachingly sweet as a proper pecan pie should be. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though a dollop of crème fraîche tempers the gooey filling without compromising its integrity.–Melissa Clark

LC Added Embellishments Note: What a nifty little trick–simmer maple syrup until almost tarry in color and consistency, steep it with spice, and rely on it to infuse baked goods with a ridiculously intense maple-y essence. You’ll never look at pecan pie recipe the same way again. Although quite perfect as-is, this pie did inspire Melissa Clark to ponder a few additional tricks and techniques. Below, her optional suggestions…

Mapley Goodness If you can get Grade B maple syrup, which has a fuller, richer flavor than the usual Grade A stuff, your pie will be even more maple-y. That’s what I use.

Not Partial to Pecans? Nut Toasted cashews would be a really nice, buttery, soft substitute for the pecans.

Sissy When It Comes to Spicy If you want to skip the star anise, go right ahead. You’ll be left with a stellar, simpler, and more traditional pie with an excellent, deep maple flavor.

Ooooh Now We’re Talking… Sometimes I like to drizzle melted extra-bitter (72 percent) chocolate all over the top of the pie. It helps cut the sweetness and adds chocolate, which never hurts anything.

Active time: 30 minutes | Total time: 4 hours, 20 minutes

Spiced Maple Pecan Pie Recipe

Directions

Want it? Click it.

Guy Mirabella | Eat Ate | Chronicle, 2009 | Serves 4

This baked mushrooms broken bread recipe comes from the Agrigento region of Italy, where mushrooms, wrapped in moistened butcher’s paper, would be buried in the hot ashes in the fireplace to cook or placed on a grill above the glowing embers. It was inspired by Mariapaola Dettore’s Funci ‘ncartati (mushrooms cooked in foil packages) from her book Sicily.–Guy Mirabella

LC Whatever You Want it To Be Note: Depending on your predilections, this recipe will probably be a deconstructed déjà vu for you of either stuffed mushroom caps or stuffing. Either way, you can’t really go wrong.

Active time: 25 minutes | Total time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Baked Mushrooms, Broken Bread Recipe

Directions

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