Thanksgiving Dorm Style

Coming from Ohio, the distance makes it a bit awkward to travel on Thanksgiving weekend. A little too long of a drive for just the weekend but too short of trip to justify flying. So instead, my sister visited me and we had our own Thanksgiving in Chicago. Thanksgiving dinner in a dorm kitchen, bring it on.

My sister was in charge of bringing the turkey, vegetables, and ingredients for an appetizer. I was in charge of buying the cranberry sauce and buying ingredients for dessert. 

So on Wednesday, I tackled a homemade cranberry sauce. I used a recipe from Bon Appetit magazine for a Chipotle Cranberry Sauce and I executed it with perfection! The simmering of the chiles took the most time but it still wasn’t very difficult. Adding the cranberries was a little more intuitive, with continuous stirring and checking the thickness. A more liquid, runny cranberry sauce type person? Keep the heat higher and remove it when it is runny. If you like a thicker, chutney type consistency, leave it on low heat for longer and again, remove it when you deem appropriate. Keep in mind that when it cools, it will thicken a little more. Also, the temperature at which you serve it will make it either thicker, if served chilled, or thinner, if served hot. Either way is delicious! We had ours chilled and it was a great savory, compliment to the turkey. The flavor was bold and savory with a kick of spice. The chiles didn’t give it an overwhelming hot and spicy flavor. They brought out and accented the tartness of the cranberries.

From Bon Appetit Magazine

Ingredients:

2 dried chipotle chiles*

1 12-ounce package fresh or frozen cranberries

1 1/3 cups sugar

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 small garlic clove, chopped

1/4 teaspoon (generous) ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon (generous) ground cumin

*Can be found at specialty foods stores, natural foods stores, and Latin markets.

Preparation:

Place chiles in medium saucepan filled with water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until chiles are tender, adding more water if needed to keep chiles submerged, 1 to 1 1/2 hours, depending on dryness of chiles. Drain.

Combine softened chipotles, cranberries, sugar, and lemon juice in heavy medium saucepan and stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Continue cooking until cranberries begin to pop, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic, cinnamon, and cumin. Simmer until sauce thickens slightly and flavors meld, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Cool.

Remove chipotles. Stem and seed. Mince chiles and return to cranberry sauce; stir to distribute. Cover and chill. DO AHEAD Can be made 1 week ahead. Keep chilled.

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On Thursday, we prepared the rest of the dishes. We had a delicious meal and everything went over very smoothly. It was partially easier since we only cooked for two. Our menu was an herb and olive oil seasoned turkey breast, chipotle chile cranberry sauce, green beans with roasted almonds and shitake mushrooms, and cinnamon-ginger spiced sweet potatoes. For a starter, we had cucumber slices with an herb cheese topped with smoked salmon.

For dessert, I found a recipe for Pumpkin Ginger Snap Cookies on a blog called “Two Peas and Their Pod” that is done by a husband and wife duo. The cookies were wonderfully fall flavored and spicy with ginger. We did modify the recipe slightly though and ours turned out to be less like gingerbread snaps. We used an entire can of Libby’s Pure Pumpkin which was fifteen ounces instead of the called for twelve. This made the batter a little less thick. After cooking all day, we were a bit tired so we didn’t want to chill the dough to roll it in sugar. If we had chilled it, the dough might have thickened enough to roll it into balls. However, with the given consistency we just put it on cookie sheets and we also made some in a muffin pan. We topped them with sugar and made the hash marks with a fork. We placed them in the oven and adjusted the cooking time to see fit; they needed to be baked a little longer. And they still turned out fantastic! The muffins were glorious in the morning with milk and coffee. I would highly recommend trying the recipe in muffin form.

Pumpkin Gingersnap Cookies from Two Peas and Their Pod

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Cook Time: 10-12 minutes

Ingredients:

½ cup of butter, at room temperature


1 cup granulated sugar, plus more for rolling the cookies


½ cup of pure pumpkin (I used Libby’s canned pumpkin)


¼ cup of molasses


1 large egg


1 teaspoon vanilla extract


2 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour


2 teaspoons baking soda


2 teaspoons cinnamon


1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger


1 teaspoon ground cloves


1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and smooth. Add the pumpkin, molasses, egg, and vanilla extract, mix until well combined.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until combined. Refrigerate the cookie dough for at least 1 hour. The dough can be chilled for 2-3 days.

3. When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 350° F. Line a baking sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper. Place sugar in a small bowl. Roll tablespoon-sized balls of dough in sugar until well coated and place on prepared baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10–12 minutes, or until cookies look cracked and set at the edges. The cookies will still be soft. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a 2-3 minutes after removing them from the oven, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely

For reference, I found the recipes on a site called Punchfork. Punchfork collects recipes form online blogs, magazines and such and then places them on their web page. You can search by ingredients, holidays, whatever! They even have recipe markers and filters for gluten free, vegan, and paleo diets. 

This Thanksgiving, my sister and I went all in. We saw a challenge, raised the stakes and made the best dinner a dorm kitchen has ever seen!