The Thanksgiving Caper: Recipes

Well, we at This SF Life survived Thanksgiving! (Yes, it’s taken us over a full week to recoup… tune in to the episode and you’ll learn why!)

While our Thanksgiving ended up being a bit more eventful than we would have initially thought, in no way did the day’s events take away from the guest of honor: Gobbles the Smoked Turkey! Thanksgiving with a few foodies and cooks is always a good party to be invited to, and we wanted to share a couple of our recipe highlights!

Farzad was the turkey chef this year, and his apple, garlic, onion, and Coke stuffed bird was smoked to perfection! 10 hours of smoky love went into our 12 lb bird, and it was absolutely worth it! It wasn’t dry, and had the perfect combination of smokiness paired with savory garlic and the sweet sweet glaze from two cans of coke. Click on the image to get to the original recipe!

Jana’s usual go-to cooking involves bread, and Thanksgiving was no different! She made piles of rolls courtesy of the late Paul Prudhomme. The recipe for Paul’s perfect rolls was quite the challenge to track down! (And involved going offline and into an actual cookbook!) Jana’s mom came through in the end by texting pics of the recipe. Let us know if you’d like the recipe, we’re happy to pass it along! (Perhaps a This SF Life cookbook should be in order?!)

And what would Turkey Day be without cranberry sauce? Not everyone’s usual go-to, but Farzad’s take on the classic recipe was, dare I say it… En Flique! He started with a classic recipe, found here, and only made one minor tweak. (A rarity for the experimental chef!) Instead of using all white sugar, try using half white and half brown. Not only was the sauce amazing with the Turkey, but it also made an excellent topping to the homemade cheesecake one of the guests brought.

Finally, no Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a pecan pie! (At least no Thanksgiving that involves a Texan! Jana can still remember going to her family’s farm to pick the pecans to be later used in the pies… YUMMM!) Jana of course made a pecan pie (recipe on the Karo syrup bottle) but the best part of the pie was the crust! This crust from All Recipes was the lightest, butteriest, flakiest yet! No matter the filling, this will be the go-to recipe in La Cocina de Jana from here on out!

Hope y’all all had a Thanksgiving as filled with tasty treats, and love as our was! (Although less 911 calls would be preferable for future celebrations!)