Continuing from yesterday's post about our pre-Thanksgiving party Sunday, pictured right is a cranberry sauce cooking, made by first rinsing one 12 oz. bag of fresh cranberries and tossing any blemished berries, putting these berries in a saucepan with 3/4 cup of water, a half-cup of sugar, two pears chopped into bite-sized pieces and some chopped crystallized ginger.  I cooked it until the berries had all busted open and the sauce had begun to thicken.




















Here's the finished product . . . so easy and sooooo much better than the stuff out of a can!












The star of the meal . . . turkey . . . was prepared by one of the best cooks I know, who hails from the deeeeeeeeeep south . . . like, South America south.  The turkey was first deboned (everything but the legs and wings) and marinated overnight in pomegranate juice and white wine.  The bird was then stuffed and roasted to perfection.  Delicious!



A staple dish on my mother's Thanksgiving (and other holiday) tables is a potato gratin.  My father's mother made this for him when he was growing up and his sister (my aunt, obviously) passed the tradition on to my mother.  My whole family looks forward to my mother's gratin—it, alone, is worth hours of travel to her dining table.  I did my best on Sunday to do my mom's recipe justice.



I began by peeling, slicing via food processor blade, and par-boiling 2.5 lbs. of yukon gold potatoes for about 7 or 8 minutes.  I then made two cups of a standard bechamel sauce: make a roux of 3 Tbs. butter and 3 Tbs. of flour stirring over low-med heat for about 5 minutes until it releases a nutty aroma but be careful not to let it brown, at the same time, simmer two cups of milk on low heat with a half-onion, with 6 whole cloves and a bay leaf inserted into the onion.  When the roux is done and the milk is hot, add a little milk into the pan with the roux and whisk until the two are thoroughly mixed, then add the milk/roux mixture back into the saucepan with the remainder of the milk and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes to thicken the sauce.  Finally, layer the potatoes, 10-12 oz. of grated cheese (I used a 2-year aged sharp cheddar and a younger smoke cheddar) and the bechamel into an oven proof casserole of some sort. 


Bake the gratin at 300 degrees for at least 1.5 hours covered, then remove the cover to brown the top.  Done.

We had a few other delicious side dishes that I neglected to photograph, including a potato salad Puerto Rico-style, a sautéed green bean dish and a green salad.


On to the most important course of any meal . . . dessert.  If you're still contemplating what dessert you'll prepare and serve on Thanksgiving, you should seriously consider this Cranberry-Chocolate Tart recipe from Epicurious, which was perfectly executed by the hostess with the mostess . . . a buttery chocolate crust, filled with creamy mascarpone and topped with sweet-tart cranberry goodness.  This one's a keeper!





One final note . . . a bit of a rant, actually.  On Saturday I mentioned my brother's Thanksgiving turkey course wine suggestion of  a zinfandel from Ridge Vineyards in Northern California.  I bought the bottle pictured in the Saturday post but, unfortunately, I opened it Sunday to discover that disconcerting, musty, damp, moldy, newspapers in a basement smell that tells you the bottle is "corked."  You can read more about "corked" wine here.  In a nutshell, the term describes wine that is spoiled as a result of a naturally-occurring fungi in the cork itself, though there are also other causes of "corked" wine.  Industry estimates of "corked" bottles of wine vary from 1%-15%—and the inconvenience can be eliminated all-together through the use of screw tops or synthetic cork materials.  I favor screw tops but, unfortunately, there's quite a stigma against screw-top wines.  Though I typically value tradition, this is one instance in which I advocate breaking with tradition.  I would much rather have had a good screw-top bottle of zinfandel to drink with our meal Sunday, than the traditionally-cork-stopped spoiled bottle I ended up with.  [Note the screw-top on the bottle of riesling pictured with our soup course here!]  I returned the bottle last night to the place of purchase and exchanged it for a hopefully-good bottle.  And, fortunately, the baker of the awesome tart had purchased an excellent bottle of Bogle Vineyards 2005 Old Vine Zinfandel . . . so, despite the corked Ridge zin, we were able to finish up our meal in style!