It's All About the Sides

Turkey is all well and good.  But let's not forget about those who stand in the shadows.

They give us creamy.  They give us crunchy.  They give us salty and sweet.

They are the sides.

Today I'm going to talk specifically about three of the side dishes that I had a hand in. 

First up: Creamed Greens

We had two bunches of mustard greens, two bunches of turnip greens, and two large containers of baby spinach.

We all sat down to take the tough stems off the mustards and turnips. 

Working as a big group makes a dull repetitive task fun!

Or as fun as it could be...

Give those greens a good wash.  Look at us using the huge sink!

Next, blanch all of the greens in boiling water for just a minute or two, then shock them in ice water. 

Next, you'll want to squeeze out all the excess water.  Michael used his hands, but I recommend using a dish towel.

Then give all those greens a good chop:

Thanks for chopping Sarah!

After chopping, squeeze the water out of the greens one more time.

Melt some butter in a heavy bottomed pan.  You could sautée a little onion here.  I'm sorry to say I was busy doing other things and I didn't actually see if Michael did.  I don't think he did.  I didn't taste any onion flavor, but it could have been just a bit. 

Anyway, you might like a little oniony goodness.  Or you could let the greens speak for themselves. 

Add your greens to the butter and stir in some milk.  You want to wait till the end to finish with cream.  Make sure you season the greens with salt and pepper.  Play with it- it's all about the look and feel of it, rather than sticking to a specific recipe.

Next up: Turnip Gratin

This one's from my favorite home-cooker, Pioneer Woman.  I saw this one, and knew I had to try it.
I'm not going to go into great detail on this one, as PW has taken care of that over on her site.

Peel up your turnips.  My happy helpers Mom and Lis took care of that.  We did a bunch, thinking that we needed more to fill up our pan.  Turns out P-dub was right- four, maybe five turnips would have done it.

Thinly slice your turnips.  If you have one of these babies, it makes quick work of it.

You can also slice them by hand.  Heck, that's what I do most of the time anyway.

Melissa was my resident cheese grater.  We mixed it up by adding some Emmentaler to the Gruyere.

I mixed my liquids into a measuring cup for ease of use.  I used heavy cream thinned down with some milk and chicken stock.  Just for fun I added a little grated nutmeg.

Do your layers:  Turnips, cream, a little chopped garlic, and then cheese.

Repeat as many times as you can, ending up with cheese on the top.

PW bakes her's at 375˚ for 20 minutes, but that wasn't nearly enough time for ours.  Perhaps we did use more than 4 turnips...  It took more like 45 minutes, and we ended up turning up the oven at the end to brown it up more.

Last on the list, brussels sprouts.

We browned ours in bacon drippings and then turned them around, adding some stock to help finish cooking.

I wouldn't recommend this method when you're cooking for a lot of people, as it's incredibly time consuming.  You can't crowd the pan, so you have to do it in batches. 

They were pretty good, but not awesome.

Another simple addition: baked sweet potatoes (simply halved and baked at 425˚).

These sides certainly stood up to Mr. Perfect Turkey, I'll tell ya that much.

Seriously try PW's gratin: you'll foget you said you hated turnips.
The greens are also certainly worth the effort.
Not so much on the brussels sprouts...

Playing,
Meredith