Just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Sweet Potato Cheesecake

Is it a yam or a sweet potato? This question comes up every year and, true to form, my sister-in-law and I talked about the very subject yesterday.

The answer is: unless you go to a special, local market or grow them yourself, you are not going to be able to buy yams. You will be buying sweet potatoes, no matter what the supermarket or greengrocer calls it. Yams are not grown commercially in the United States.

There are many varieties of sweet potato. Some almost white, some yellow, others are dark, rich almost burgundy-orange.

They’re all sweet potatoes.

As is the stuff in the cans.

Centuries ago some sweet potato varieties were called nyami by American slaves, who thought the vegetable looked like the African yam, a completely different plant species. And that’s how the confusion all began.

No matter. Whatever you call them, most people love them and will be making some sort of sweet potato dish for Thanksgiving.

If you need a really quick and easy recipe without all the sugar and butter and other stuff, here’s the simple way I make yams, er — sweet potatoes: I buy the dark orange organic sweets, roast them and when they are cool I spoon the flesh into a bowl. I grate the rind of a fresh orange over it, sprinkle in a few shakes of cinnamon and mix. Then I stir in enough orange juice to get the texture I like. That’s all there is to it.

This recipe is less caloric, less fatty. So that if you have any leftovers you can make an awesome, not-so-low calorie cheesecake for the rest of the weekend. Here’s a recipe:

Sweet Potato Cheesecake

• ground toasted almonds (about 2 tablespoons), optional

• 1-1/2 pounds cream cheese

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 1/4 cup white sugar

• 1 to 1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon grated fresh nutmeg

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon grated fresh orange rind*

• 1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 4 large eggs

• 3/4 cup pureed sweet potatoes

• 1/2 cup dairy sour cream or plain yogurt

• confectioner’s sugar, candied ginger, etc. for garnish, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter an 8-inch or 9-inch springform pan (or cheesecake pan). Sprinkle with the toasted almonds and twirl the pan to lightly coat the sides and bottom with the nuts. Beat the cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer set at medium for 2-3 minutes or until smooth. Add the brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, orange rind and vanilla extract and beat the ingredients for 2-3 minutes or until well blended. Add the eggs one at a time beating after each addition. Mix in the sweet potatoes and sour cream, blending thoroughly.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan. Place the pan in a larger pan. Fill the larger pan with enough water to come up about 1-inch on the sides of the springform pan. Bake for about one hour or until set. Remove the springform from the larger pan and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before removing the cake from the pan to cool completely. Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar or candied ginger if desired.

Makes one cake, serves 8-10

*if you use leftover mashed and seasoned sweet potatoes, cut down on the orange rind by half.

sprinklefingers: sharing jamie

sprinklefingers:

one of my all-time favorite cookbooks is jamie’s italy.
and my favorite recipe from that book is probably the simplest.

my husband calls it ‘baked pasta’ but that phrase has so many negative grade school cafeteria/high school graduation party connotations for me that i always make sure to…

The recipes I inherited from my grandmothers and their friends never had precise measurements. They always listed stuff by the handful or glassful. The challah recipe I make — from my grandmother’s collection — started out as “8 hands of flour” and so on. It took a while to figure out!

I always assumed the “glass” in “1/2 glass water” meant the little Yahrzeit glasses Jewish people use. These are small glasses filled with a candle that is lit on the anniversary of a loved one’s death. They burn for 24 hours. But they are not the size of an ordinary glass, like a tumbler for milk or juice or iced tea! And in fact today’s yahrzeit glasses are teeny compared to the ones I remember as a kid, so a measurement of “1/2 glass” would be different today than way back then.

Anyway, I think it is fun to interpret recipes like that. Makes you think and consider what you are doing and what part the ingredients play in the dish you are preparing. It also shows that recipes can be flexible. That’s a good thing because you can change things to suit yourself.

Thanks for this blog post Sprinklefingers! This was fun. I enjoyed hearing what you did with the recipe. Sounds delish. I also like the tips you give (like making some sauce way ahead).

Keep blogging. I really love your posts!

Bread Stuffing with Figs and Hazelnuts

Is it “stuffing,” “dressing” or “filling”?

Some people say it’s stuffing if it’s inside the bird, filling if it isn’t. But others say it’s a regional thing: “dressing” more of a Southern term, filling in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Or that “dressing” is British while “stuffing” is American.

My mother called it “filling” not stuffing. I always thought it was because her version was made with pasta, not the more traditional bread. It was filling, for sure (though no more than stuffing). And delicious too, made with egg-barley shaped noodles mixed with sauteed onions, mushrooms, celery and eggs.

I used to make “Nana’s Filling” every year until my kids told me they wanted something new.

I’ve been experimenting with recipes ever since and make new ones all the time (sometimes in addition to “Nana’s” or another old favorite). Sometimes I use bread, sometimes rice or whole grains like kasha or bulgur wheat. Maybe I’ll add fruit and nuts or a variety of mushrooms. Stuffing-dressing-filling is one of those versatile and forgiving recipes. You can more or less mix up a starchy ingredient, some texture foods (such as mushrooms, dried apricots, cashews, and so on), seasonings (chopped herbs and the like) and a binder of some sort (eggs, stock, cream, soy milk etc.), mix it all together and there you have it. Whatever you call it.

Here’s a recipe for a bread-based stuffing-dressing-filling with fresh and dried fruits and nuts too. We like it cooked separately from the turkey, but you can make it either way. This recipe makes about 12 cups — enough for a 14-15 pound turkey.

Bread Stuffing with Figs and Hazelnuts

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 large Granny Smith or other crisp, tart apple, peeled, cored and chopped

1 cup chopped dried figs

1/2 cup raisins

1 cup chopped hazelnuts

8 cups 1/2-inch diced bread

3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary (or 1 teaspoon dried)

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme (or 3/4 teaspoon dried)

1/2 to 1 cup chicken or vegetable stock

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat the vegetable oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes or until slightly softened. Add the apple, figs and raisins and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Spoon the contents of the pan into a large bowl. Add the nuts, bread cubes, parsley, rosemary and thyme. Toss ingredients to distribute them evenly. Pour in 1/2 cup stock and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss ingredients. Add the remainder of the stock if you prefer a moister stuffing. Place inside the turkey. To bake separately, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, spoon the stuffing into a casserole, cover the casserole and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the cover and bake for another 12-15 minutes. Makes about 12 cups.

Turkey Salad with Chickpeas and Orange Vinaigrette

Food writers are always thinking a season ahead, so I’ve already gone over the prospective Valentine’s Day article with my editor at the newspaper. These discussions always reminds me of my Dad, who was a fabric buyer, and how he was writing orders for calico cotton in December and thick wool in July.

Still, it’s not even Thanksgiving. But this is how my mind works — I’m already contemplating turkey leftovers. We all love sandwiches the day after. But then I like to get more creative so I make up salads and stirfries for the rest of the meat. Here’s an easy salad recipe you can use for your leftovers.

Turkey Salad with Chickpeas and Orange Vinaigrette

• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• peel of half an orange cut into strips
• 2 cups cooked diced turkey
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas
• 1 cup thawed frozen peas or cut up cooked broccoli
• 3 tablespoons orange juice
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1-1/2 teaspoons grated fresh orange peel
• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Combine the olive oil and orange peel in a small saucepan and cook over low heat for 10 minutes. Let rest for 30 minutes. Discard the peel. Place the turkey, chickpeas and vegetable in a bowl and toss to mix the ingredients. In another bowl mix the flavored olive oil, orange juice, lemon juice and orange peel and pour over the turkey mixture. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste. Let rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Makes 4 servings

Quick Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream

Pumpkin spice is the seasoning of the season. Not just for pie and cake. You see the words “pumpkin spice” everywhere, even for things like tea and coffee. Of course you really don’t get the pumpkin, just the spices that go with the pumpkin if you were making a pie.

So for all those pumpkin spice lovers, here’s a REALLY QUICK recipe you can make even an hour before Thanksgiving dinner or anytime at all. It’s for ice cream with all the fresh, warm spices we associate with the season.

This recipe takes about 5 minutes. The only thing you have to do ahead is remember to take the ice cream out of the freezer for about 15-20 minutes to soften.

If you are ambitious and have a few minutes more, spoon it into a graham cracker crust and you’ll have a pie. If you’re even more ambitious, grind up some gingerbread cookie crumbs (1-1/2 cups) mix them with 5 tablespoons of melted butter and press them into a 9-inch pie pan. Refrigerate the crust for an hour, then spoon the ice cream inside and freeze.

Quick Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream

1 quart vanilla ice cream, softened

1 cup mashed pumpkin (canned is fine)

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Place ingredients in a bowl and mix ingredients thoroughly to blend them completely until smooth and uniform in color. Return to the freezer until chilled completely. Makes slightly more than one quart

Baked Cranberries

On Thanksgiving when I was a kid the cranberry sauce choices were either the jellied kind that trembled or the lumpy kind that clumped together on the plate. In either case, from the can. The lumpy stuff was way too sophisticated for me. The shivery kind went down easier.

Then my mother discovered fresh cranberries. We never looked back. Especially because the recipe is so easy you could do it in less than 5 minutes prep time. And even though it is lumpy, the fruit has a faintly resilient texture and your tongue can actually tell it’s berries you’re eating. It doesn’t cook into an indistinguishable mass. It’s good and beautiful too.

Baked Cranberries

• 12 ounces fresh cranberries (3 cups)

• 1-1/2 cups sugar

• 3 tablespoons Grand Marnier or other orange flavored brandy

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wash and drain the berries and place them in a single layer in a baking dish. Add the sugar and toss to coat all the berries. Cover the dish tightly with a lid or aluminum foil. Bake for 45-50 minutes. Remove the cover and stir thoroughly. Let the berries cool. Stir in the brandy. Chill thoroughly.

Makes 6-8 servings