Do you feel a little useless during the holidays when you show up to your relative’s house empty handed? Your aunt cooked up three turkeys, your grandfather made his special meat stuffing, your mom made five different desserts, and then you come in the door with nothing but an empty belly waiting to be served! I’ve found a few simple recipes that you can make to contribute to your family/friend Thanksgiving dinner.
1. Chicken parmesan in a blanket
These are delicious! They are also super easy to make. All you need is chicken, Pillsbury crescent dinner rolls, mozzarella cheese, grated parmesan cheese, butter, salt, pepper and some marinara sauce for dipping. After 40 minutes of prep and cook time, voila! You’re serving your family a trendy take on chicken parm.
2. My favorite salad recipe
What’s easier to make than a salad? This salad mix is my favorite and my family loves it too! Just make sure that the host has a few dressings to choose from.
Side note: there are a lot of ingredients listed, but you do not have to use all of them.
Ingredients: any variety of greens (kale, spinach, romaine, etc.), bean sprouts, onions, chopped bacon, shredded carrots, cherry tomatoes, olives (black or green), cucumber, chopped apples, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries and feta cheese (maybe on the side).
3. Baked pumpkin doughnuts
This is the simplest doughnut (no, I don’t mean donut) recipe I have ever found. It has very few key ingredients and it only takes 24 minutes to make! Besides the basics (cinnamon, sugar, powdered sugar, vanilla/maple extract and milk), all you need is a spice cake mix, pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice and cream cheese. After 14 minutes of cook time, you’ll have fluffy, moist, beautiful and soft doughnuts! Nothing beats the smell of pumpkin spice rising from your oven.
4. Homemade Applesauce
My mom is a pre-school teacher so she has a fair share of tricks up her sleeve. A fun activity she does with her students in the fall is make applesauce. I’ve made it a couple times by myself and jeez it is amazing. All you need is eight apples (Cortland and McIntosh are best), sugar, cinnamon and water.
First, peel ALL of the skin from your apples, remove the core and slice them into cubes. As you do this, place the cubed apples into a big pot that has an inch of water in it. When you have successfully cubed all of your apples, pour a small amount of sugar and ground cinnamon into the pot, put the cover on and turn the stove onto the seventh heat setting. Once your mixture comes to a boil, turn the heat down to medium and stir. Try to stir the concoction every couple of minutes. Your apples should eventually cook down to a sauce. If you want to speed up the process, feel free to mash the apples like you would potatoes. Taste the applesauce as you cook it because you need make sure it’s sweet enough. Add more sugar and cinnamon as you go!
5. Betty Crocker’s classic cornbread
I’ve been on a Betty Crocker kick recently because all the recipes I follow from that cookbook come out PERFECTLY. They’re legit recipes from the food gods…so good. All you need for Betty Crocker’s cornbread is butter, milk, eggs, yellow, white or blue cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Feel free to add some corn if you’d like some crunch as well. It takes about 10 minutes to prep and 35 to bake. You and your family will for sure enjoy this fluffy, moist cornbread that will be baked to perfection all thanks to Betty Crocker!