We took a few shortcuts to give you the taste of tradition without all the work

Let's face it: It's been a long year. We've been through a lot.

As much as we love Thanksgiving, maybe it's time for a break.

We're not suggesting you give up the meal, just ease up on the shenanigans involved in cooking it.

In fact, we want to help. We've spent that past few weeks in the FOODday test kitchen, searching for shortcuts and dreaming up "cheater" versions of all your favorites.

The work paid off in some fantastic, easy recipes, none of which will shortchange you on taste or rely too heavily on processed foods.

Recipe included with this story: Easy Butterflied Turkey, Quick Cranberry-Pecan Stuffing, Horseradish-Chive Mashed Potatoes, Easy Ginger Cranberry Sauce, Herbed Sweet Potatoes, Quick and Easy Turkey Gravy, Make-Ahead Creamed Spinach Gratin

Continue reading "Your fastest feast ever" »

What's wrong with getting a little assistance with that Thanksgiving pie?

Let's be frank about the expression "easy as pie": It only applies when the baker doesn't have to do every other ding-darned thing for the meal.

So come Thanksgiving, even the most enthusiastic pie maker might welcome a little assist.

Thankfully, we found it, whether you want a dessert that's "semi-homemade" or to leave the baking to someone else altogether.

Gimme the dough
We're picky about crusts and delighted that a few local bakeries are selling all-butter pre-made pie dough through the holidays.

Sweet Wares, a spinoff retail store a few doors away from Baker & Spice Bakery, is the place to buy baker Julie Richardson's signature flaky pie dough. Use the 12-inch frozen disks of all-butter pastry ($8 for a package of two) to line your pie pan and fill with fruit, nuts, pumpkin custard or whatever you fancy. 6306 S.W. Capitol Highway, in the Hillsdale Shopping Center, 503-546-3737.

Continue reading "You don't have to do everything" »

Find all your favorite recipes (including vegan pie!), plus menu ideas and tips and techniques from our Test Kitchen:

Continue reading "FOODday's Thanksgiving Guide" »

TEST KITCHEN: Organic, kosher, heirloom: The big bird comes in more varieties than it used to

If you haven't bought or ordered your turkey yet, there's still time to find a good bird -- but the premium choices will likely be a distant memory. Heritage, kosher, free-range, organic and locally raised birds are generally very flavorful and high in quality (not to mention price), but they do get snapped up fast.

Continue reading "Sort out the confusing labels to pick the turkey for your feast" »

Turkey still frozen hard as a boulder? Don't know how much stuffing to make to serve 12? Wonder if it's OK to leave your pumpkin pie on the counter? Questions -- even minor emergencies -- are bound to crop up during the holidays. But our new online Thanksgiving guide, at FOODday.com, has many of the answers. We've gathered suggested menus, helpful tips and just the recipes you need -- such as for brining your turkey, the ever-popular Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes, and desserts that will knock their socks off.

Continue reading "Help for the holidays" »

MARKET WATCH

When: 2-7 p.m. Wednesdays

Where: 3029 S.E. 21st Ave., between Powell and Division

Web: peoples.coop/community/farmersmarket/index_html

When Chaucer wrote, "There is an end to everything, to good things as well," he obviously didn't know about the People's market, whose vendors gather year-round every Wednesday in the courtyard of People's Co-op in Southeast Portland and bring a cheerful festival atmosphere to even chilly winter evenings.

Continue reading "People's Farmers Market" »

IN SEASON: This small, sweet onion adapts well to roasted or braised dishes

Although the name conjures images of Italian food, cipollini onions are at home in a world of cuisines. The small, sweet, disc-shaped onions that arrive in late summer and fall adapt well to all recipes that require roasted or braised onions. You can use cipollini as a pickled condiment, braised in stews, or roasted and glazed with balsamic vinegar.

Occasionally, you might find that a recipe calls for Borettana onions -- that's essentially cipollini. The two varieties have a related lineage.

Cipollini have a sweet zing without acrid or bitter overtones. Conversations with local shippers in Ontario, which is among several communities to bill itself as "The Onion Capital of the World," confirm that the "sweetness" of an onion has zero relationship to its sugar content. It's the presence of pyruvic acid that determines the mildness or sharpness of taste. The more pyruvic acid, the sharper the flavor. Cipollini have more of the acid than the Walla Walla but, nonetheless, are on the low end of the scale.

Continue reading "Cipollini onion crosses cultures" »

WINE NOTES: Politics? No. Religion? Uh-uh. Give guests a safe topic with a sippable selection

Thanksgiving is a time to reunite with long-absent loved ones, to celebrate, share and -- especially if you're hosting -- to prevent squabbles.

Continue reading "Thanksgiving wines to chat about" »

Newsweek subscribers will have noticed that the latest issue has a long article, titled "The New Coop de Ville," on the craze for backyard chickens. Read the whole thing online at www.newsweek.com/id/168740. It includes news about grass-roots efforts to overturn city ordinances that outlaw backyard poultry farming, which this past year have been successful in in Missoula, Mont.; South Portland, Maine; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Ft. Collins, Colo.

Continue reading "Poultry craze makes headlines" »

We're in a funk now that many of the area's farmers markets are closed, but at least we have a few last hurrahs to look forward to just before Thanksgiving.

Portland Farmers Market's FEASTival, happening 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22, in the South Park Blocks at Portland State University, will feature all the stellar fall produce you need for your holiday feast, plus homemade pies, natural centerpieces, chocolate, cheeses and Oregon wine. Be sure to stick around for the three chef demos, with David Padberg from Park Kitchen at 10 a.m.; Robert Reynolds at 11 a.m.; and Cory Schreiber, founder of Wildwood, at noon.

Continue reading "Don't miss fall markets for holiday season" »

VEGETARIAN FLAVORS: A savory souffle base has a filling of roasted squash and ricotta cheese

The day that made turkey famous doesn't have to exclude vegetarians or, worse yet, cause them to go into a carb-coma after eating nothing but starchy side dishes.

Recipe included with this story: Parmesan Cheese Roulade With Roasted Squash and Lacinato Kale

Continue reading "Just like turkey, impressive roulade slices at the table" »

Tomato paste and cheeses mixed with the meat keep this combo burger moist and tasty

Forget fried chicken and apple pie; pizza and burgers are America's most iconic meals.

Whether we like it or not, these two ubiquitous fast foods symbolize our nation's cuisine. And while we can probably draw all sorts of negative conclusions about that, the truth of the matter is they're popular because they're so tasty.

Recipe included with this story: Pizza Burgers

Continue reading "Flavors of two American favorites merge on ban" »