thanksgiving desserts
plus: dinner ideas, skillet-baked mac & cheese, and an interview with margaret eby
Monday, November 18, 2024
Good morning!
Looking for a gift idea? I love Molly Reeder’s food drawings so much.
The Best Way to Test a Cookbook? Try It at a Restaurant. [Eater]
This Turkey Church Is Just One Way People Celebrate the Humble Bird [Atlas Obscura]
Thank you for your warm reception about the special audiobook edition of Smitten Kitchen Keepers, Smitten Kitchen Keepers: A Kitchen Counter Conversation, out last week. I’ve never recorded an audiobook before and was eager to try something new and different. I wanted to see if there was a way to have a cookbook audiobook that didn’t involve reading recipes out loud and PRH Audio, and my excellent producers, were a huge help in shaping this vision. If you’d like to buy it for a gift for someone for the holidays, I will send you a signed holiday card with a bonus recipe to gift, too. You can register for yours here.
Last week I shared my Big Thanksgiving Planner 🍂 with all of the site’s holiday classics and staples. This week, I’m sharing all of our favorite Thanksgiving desserts from pie to cheesecake. You have my encouragement to send it someone as an unsubtle hint.
Today we also have an interview with the fantastic Margaret Eby whose new cookbook, You Gotta Eat: Real-Life Strategies for Feeding Yourself When Cooking Feels Impossible, is out tomorrow, 11/19. I absolutely love what she has to say about cooking authority below. Don’t miss this!
Cheers!
Deb
skillet-baked macaroni and cheese
New! A no-boil, one-skillet, utterly cozy and decadent baked macaroni and cheese that’s taken over my life this fall in the best way, and became my new forever go-to. I hope you make it immediately as written for dinner tonight, and then double it for all of the holiday crowds ahead.
We’ve got a whole new way to hang out in the kitchen.
The special audiobook edition of Smitten Kitchen Keepers, Smitten Kitchen Keepers: A Kitchen Counter Conversation is now out! I hope it feels exactly like you’ve pulled up a chair and I’m hanging out in the kitchen with you, discussing techniques, substitutions, and chatting about what I think makes each recipe special.
“Anyone who likes to cook will be inspired to get into the kitchen after listening to this audio program.” — Audiofile Magazine
“One of the winning elements of ‘The Recipe’ is that it’s not prescriptive — rather than settling on one universal ‘perfect’ recipe, the chefs explain their personal preferences, then give listeners the information they need to make their own adjustments. By breaking their recipes down ingredient-by-ingredient, digging into what each one is doing, they make the science of cooking approachable and fun.” — New York Times, 7 Podcasts to Inspire a New Hobby
The latest episode of my podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb is all about Popcorn! You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts, such as Apple, Spotify, and more.
classic pumpkin pie with pecan praline sauce
When one classic (old-school pumpkin pie) loves another classic (pecan pie) very much, everyone wins.
pecan pie
Six simple tips to send your (corn syrup-free) pecan pie game into the stratosphere, because just-good-enough pecan pie would never cut it around here.
black bottom oatmeal pie
Do you or someone you know suffer from Pecan Pie Deprivation Syndrome because of a nut allergy? With oats, chocolate, and a gooey salted caramel, there's nothing even a little second place about this.
cranberry pie with thick pecan crumble
I rarely see straight-up cranberry pies. The fruit is usually cut with apples or pears, seemingly intimidated by the intensity. But I think the secret to a great one is an even better contrast, here a thick crumble topping of oats, toasted pecans, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter. Don't forget the dusting of powdered sugar, and the vanilla whipped or ice cream. Just let me know what time to show up!
apple slab pie
Slab pie is the ideal format to distribute apple pie to the maximum amount of people and -- just throwing this out there -- it looks a giant, flaky/buttery/tender pop tart.
bourbon pumpkin cheesecake
Did you know that cheesecake keeps in the fridge for a up to a week? That means you can bake this Thanksgiving show-stealer (I'm basically not even welcome at dinner without it) ahead of time and so long as you keep it away from me, be all set for the big day.
cranberry, caramel and almond tart
My husband's favorite Thanksgiving dessert is (shockingly) not bourbon pumpkin cheesecake or even chocolate pecan pie but this: a buttery tart shell filled with fresh cranberries, cooked until collapsed in a salted butterscotch sauce crunched with toasted almonds. Have you been converted?
dark chocolate tart with gingersnap crust
You know those people who are all "pumpkin, schmumpkin! It's not dessert unless it has chocolate in it!" This is just for them (and it's a breeze to make).
simple chicken tortilla soup
This simple chicken tortilla soup is a weeknight favorite and a cinch to pull off even after a long day, while not skimping at all on flavor or texture. I hope it makes its way into your repertoires, too.
pasta with garlicky broccoli rabe
For those of us who never have any idea what's for dinner until it's hangry o'clock, this is our in-house 15-minute 4-ingredient dinner savior. It includes a pound of greens and is willingly consumed by at least 75% of the family, i.e. it’s a miracle.
roasted yams and chickpeas with yogurt
Great steak fry-like wedges of sweet potatoes roasted with honey, lime and chile flakes, topped with crispy chickpeas and yogurt to make an easy but complex meal you probably won't even want to share. (We won't tell if you don't.)
I’ve written three cookbooks and I’m a tiny bit biased, but I think you’d love them all. Wondering what you might cook from Smitten Kitchen Keepers now that school’s back in session and the leaves are changing colors? I thought you’d never ask! Try the peanut butter, oat, and jam bars, spiced sweet potato oven fries, tangy baked eggplant and couscous, and weeknight lemon chicken wings. To finish, I recommend the apple butterscotch crisp, the pumpkin snacking cake, and/or the apple cider old-fashioned. Were you looking for a list of all the recipes in each of my cookbooks? I’ve added these in a separate page and hope it makes it easier for you to find everything you want to cook.
AN INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET EBY
My shelves are full of wonderful cookbooks I don’t get to talk about enough, so I’ve added this section so you can get to know the cool people behind them. Today we're chatting with Margaret Eby. Her new cookbook, You Gotta Eat: Real-Life Strategies for Feeding Yourself When Cooking Feels Impossible, is out tomorrow, 11/19.
1. What inspired your cookbook?
The elevator pitch for You Gotta Eat was "a cookbook for depressed people." That's one of those jokes that's not totally a joke, more like a haha...unless? It's a book that's not just for depressed people, though when I pitched it I was coming out of a bad seasonal depressive episode. I love cooking and food (and not to be so embarrassing but am a huge, huge fan of Smitten Kitchen). The kitchen is a real source of joy, creativity, and community for me. I made a pretzel croquembouche with my friends for fun, for God's sake.
But during that depressive episode, and in previous times when I've been burned out, stressed, or otherwise emotionally preoccupied, I've found that cooking and feeding myself is pretty difficult. And if that's true for me, a person with unusual access to cooking resources, thanks to my job and culinary background, I assumed that it would be true for a lot of other people. All the fancy restaurant chefs and glossy magazine editors I know who love to cook, and dedicate their careers to cooking, also have days where the lunch is a frozen burrito, or maybe canned soup with a handful of crumbled-up chips on top. The hope is that it's a book for when you want to cook, or feel like you should, but the emotional resources to follow through on that are just not there. So yes, it's a cookbook for depressed people, but also for if you're anxious, burned out, going through a tough time, are having to take care of a small child or a parent, or are otherwise in survival mode. It's a collection of shortcuts, and ways to make things a little bit more flavorful or interesting or nutritionally dense, but also, I hope, a pep talk, and permission slip if you need one.
2. What recipe are you the most proud of in the book, or felt the most triumphant when you got it right?
Khao soi is one of my favorite dishes in the world. There's just something about the combination of crunchy noodles, soft noodles, curry soup, and various vegetables that makes me happy every time. But making khao soi from scratch is a project, and one I'm not up for when I'm in a period where feeding myself is one of those Groundhog Day-level nightmares, like "oh god, dinner...again?" So I was unreasonably proud of myself when I figured out that I could approximate a few of my favorite elements of khao soi with packet ramen, frozen vegetables, and premade curry paste for "Sort of Khao Soi." Is it in any way traditional? No! Is it tasty and easy? Oh boy, it sure is.
3. What recipe is so low-effort, high-reward that it's worth cooking for dinner tonight, even if we're tired and don't want to cook?
Honestly, I think that depends so much on who you are and what motivates you. The answer for me is a quesadilla. Even when I'm exhausted, and on the precipice of ordering take-out that I know will be expensive and repetitive, I can usually muster the energy to slap some cheese on a tortilla, and fill it with leftovers I have, or maybe some canned beans. (Bonus: this is an excellent way to eat a lot of sour cream for dinner, if that's your jam.) This is how I discovered how good a chicken tikka quesadilla is, for example. And for ideal crispiness, yes, of course, toasting it on a skillet on the stove is the course of action to get those delicious cheese-laced edges. But if you can't face cleaning a pan or turning on the stove, our good friend the microwave has your back.
Also: Soup! There's a reason that soup is recently having a meme moment: There are very few limits on soup. Broth with little bits of vegetables and maybe some meat in it? Glorious. There's something so nourishing and inherently generous about soup. Cans of soup exist for a reason! They're very easy to zhush up a bit with things you probably already have lying around, like spices or hot sauce, a handful of pasta, some frozen vegetables, or even just a glug of vinegar. There's a method in the book for turning a jar of tomato sauce into tomato soup, and that's a very easy way to convert a lingering pantry staple into a meal. I honestly use that trick at least once every couple of weeks in the winter.
I want to stress that if you don't want to cook, and you order pizza instead, you have not failed! There is no secret cabal of high-end chefs judging you for your Domino's order! There is always another meal. Cooking will be there for you. You can find your way back to it when you have the strength.
4. What's something you wish more people knew about your book?
One of the things I think a lot about in my work is who has authority in cooking, and why. There's a lot of stuff floating out there about things you are doing "incorrectly" in the kitchen, for example. And that's simply not true—correct is a point of view. There are certain facts in cooking, like cutting things into roughly the same size means they cook at the same rate, and that's helpful to understand going in. But maybe you can't or don't want to deal with a chef's knife. Kitchen shears are just as valid a way to cut things up. What works for you isn't illegitimate because it's not the same thing that chefs at Michelin-starred restaurants do.
People have been attacking the problem of how to feed themselves for as long as there have been people. The freeing thing about that is realizing there isn't a wrong way to solve that problem. I hope, if nothing else, this book helps you think about feeding yourself in a new way, and that maybe you even have a tiny bit of fun doing it.
Thank you, Margaret! You can preorder You Gotta Eat right here.
all butter, really flaky pie dough
shop my favorites
Ever wonder where I get my cutting boards, paring knives, offset spatulas and more than you see when I cook? I've created a page on Smitten Kitchen with links to some of my favorite kitchen items, the ones I'm asked about the most — yes, including the the Smitten Kitchen x Staub Braiser, which is back in stock! For each item, I've attempted to provide a range of shopping links so we're not just focusing on one giant retailer.
See you next week!
