Thanksgiving Dinner at Casa de Hart

Happy Sunday, readers! I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with fantastic food, great family and friends and great sales (if you're a Black Friday shopper)! It was absolutely wonderful to get to see Mama and Papa Hart again! I hate that I only really get to see them twice a year at most, darn being a functioning adult! As promised, the following are the recipes for my favorite Thanksgiving dishes!



Thanksgiving Dinner Favorites







Let's get real here for a second, the holidays are stressful and I'm always on board for alleviating stress and making things easier for myself - I have two life mottos: "work smarter, not harder" and "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission". Since I'm all about making things easier for myself, I prepared what I could early and left the rest for Turkey (read Tofurky) Day.



Red Chile Sauce



2 Tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
2 Tbsp flour
1/2 C red chile powder
1 - 1 1/2 C water



In a sauce pan, saute garlic in olive oil over medium heat until fragrant. Stir in flour and allow to cook for 1-2 minutes.

Add red chile powder using a wooden spoon and allow to toast for 1 minute. Be careful here, the red chile powder is very easily burned. Slowly add in the water and stir to desired consistency. I prefer my chile sauce to be a little thicker so I add closer to 1 cup of water but it's totally personal preference.

Pour chile into a glass jar and save in the fridge until use. I made my chile sauce 5 days prior to Thanksgiving.

Now, you non-New Mexicans are probably wondering why would I use anything other than gravy? Chile runs through every New Mexican's veins and Thanksgiving and Christmas day are no exceptions. Plus I've never liked gravy. To me it just tastes like grease, why would I want to eat grease? That's disgusting. I used my chile on my mashed potatoes, stuffing and Tofurky.


Pumpkin Cheesecake


3 8 oz packages of softened cream cheese
15 oz can pumpkin puree
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 Tsp cinnamon
1/8 Tsp cloves
1/8 Tsp nutmeg
1/8 Tsp allspice
1/8 Tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 9-inch graham cracker crusts (recipe to follow)


Preheat oven to 350.


In your handy stand mixer, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Mix in pumpkin puree, eggs and egg yolk and spices until fully incorporated.


Mix in flour and vanilla.


Pour the mixture into a prepared graham cracker crust (this mixture is enough for two 9 inch pie crusts). Bake your cheesecakes in the oven for 1 hour. After an hour, turn off the oven but allow the cheesecakes to come to room temperature in the oven.


Chill the cakes in the fridge for 6-8 hours or overnight.


My cheesecakes this year unfortunately spent a little extra time "coming to room temperature" because I didn't stick them in the oven until about 11:00 PM on Wednesday evening. The cakes were a little denser than I would've hoped for but they were still heavenly and delicious when served with a dollop of whipped cream.


Graham Cracker Pie Crust


8 graham crackers
4 Tbsp butter, melted
3 Tbsp sugar


Preheat oven to 350.


Using a food processor, break up graham crackers until they resemble a pie crust. Add in sugar and melted butter to make the mixture slightly "damp" looking.


Press the crumbly mixture into a 9 inch pie pan or a 9 inch spring-form pan.



Mashed Potatoes

5 golden potatoes, washed and diced
1/3 C heavy cream, divided
4 Tbsp onion and chive cream cheese
4 Tbsp butter
Salt and pepper, to taste



Boil potatoes until a stockpot full of water until fork tender, drain and replace in stockpot. Pour in 1/4 C of heavy cream and begin mashing using a potato masher until the mixture is your desired consistency. I prefer my mashed potatoes to still have some chunks in them, but that's just me. Add in your cream cheese, butter and seasonings and stir to combine.


Now Thanksgiving is all about meticulous planning and scheduling, so to maximize stove-space, I poured my taters into a non-stick sprayed Crock Pot and kept them on the "keep warm" setting until serving. The potatoes were moist and warm by the time we sat down to dinner. I stirred them periodically and added in a little extra cream cheese and seasonings throughout the day.


Cheddar-Garlic Zucchini Muffins

3 C flour
4 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp salt
1/2 Tsp baking soda
1/2 Tsp garlic powder
3 medium zucchini, grated
3/4 C shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 C finely chopped green onion
2 Tbsp dried dill
2 eggs
1 C buttermilk (or 1 C 2% or skim milk mixed with 3 Tsp apple cider vinegar)
4 Tbsp melted butter


Preheat oven to 350.


Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and garlic powder. Stir in zucchini, cheddar, green onion and dill using a wooden spoon.


In a separate bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk and butter.


Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir to combine. Pour the dough into a greased muffin tin or into a 9X5 loaf pan. If making muffins, bake these little beauties for 30 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly. If making a loaf, bake for 50 minutes.


For me, rolls and bread are an integral part of Thanksgiving dinner. What else would you use to sop up all that delicious red chile sauce if not bread or a tortilla? However, I didn't realize I didn't have any rolls/bread/tortillas planned until 10:00 AM on Thanksgiving day and Nate wanted to throw the turkey in at 11:30 AM - if you actually had time (unlike me) allow the muffins or loaf to cool in the pan for 30 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. If you're a horrible planner, rapidly remove muffins from pan to wire rack and suffer burns on your fingertips.


These muffins are flavorful and hearty - perfect for sopping-purposes or just enjoying heated up with some butter.


Tofurky with Caramelized Onions and Cherries

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1/2 Tsp salt
3/4 C dried tart cherries (I bet dried cranberries would taste excellent, too)
1 Tbsp finely chopped sage or rosemary (used rosemary because fresh sage was scarce to be found)
1/4 C balsamic vinegar (I used an 18-year aged vinegar from Blue Ridge Vinegars in Murphy, North Carolina)
1 Tbsp Dijon or stone-ground mustard (or 1/2 Tbsp of each because you can't possibly decide which one you prefer)
1 C vegetable broth
1 Tofurky Roast


Preheat oven to 350.


In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-low heat. Cook onions and salt for about 25 minutes or until onions are golden and soft, stir every 5 minutes.


Add in the sage or rosemary and cook an additional 3 minutes. Stir in vinegar, cherries and mustard(s) and cook for 3 minutes being sure to scrape any of the delicious browned bits from the bottom of the pan.


Pour vegetable broth in a Dutch oven or casserole dish, and place the Roast in the pan with any vegetables you may want to cook with it (I added some onion quarters, sweet potatoes and turnips) and top with the delicious caramelized onions and cherries. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 10 minutes.


The sauce really made this dish! I've had Tofurky roasts in the past and this one was by far the most flavorful and succulent (is it weird to say that about a wheat and tofu product?) Also the side-veggies were perfectly tender and infused with flavor.


Nate's contributions to Thanksgiving were his family recipe cranberry sauce, turnip greens (which he made vegetarian but I didn't eat), roasted vegetables and, of course, the piece de resistance: the bird.

We spent the day lounging around the apartment, drinking wine and watching television together. Dinner was ready by 5:00 PM and then we feasted! All the food and wine was magnificent and left us all feeling like one of the Macy's parade balloons. So there you have it, my Thanksgiving staples.


Happy Thanksgiving and merry almost-December to you and yours!