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Here are two suggestions.  These unique cookbooks, both published by Massachusetts living history museums, combine tasty recipes with lessons in American history.  And what you learn may not be exactly what you learned at your classroom desks.

The first book is called Giving Thanks:  Thanksgiving Recipes & History, From Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie.  This lovely book was put out by the folks of Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum which depicts life in Plymouth Colony in the 1600′s.  I have never actually been to Plimoth Plantation, I actually bought* this book at Strawbery Banke, a living history museum in Portsmouth, NH.  I’m sure the Plimoth Plantation museum store has it, as well.

This book delves deep into the history of Thanksgiving in America…you will learn what the Pilgrims and Native Americans REALLY ate back then, how Thanksgiving became a national holiday, and much. much more.  Interspersed with your history lessons are dozens of tasty recipes, as well as photographs and drawings from the vast archives of Plimoth Plantation.

And here we have the newly revised and updated edition of the Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook.  I just bought* this book yesterday at the OSV museum shop.  I already had the previous edition, but this new one is so much better organized than the last one, and also contains more recipes.  I had been disappointed that the last edition did not contain the recipe for Gourd Soup, which we first had at one of OSV’s Hearthside Bounty dinners.  But this edition does have it, and you MUST try it, it is so very, very yummie!

Old Sturbridge Village is a living history museum in Massachusetts which depicts New England life in the early to mid 1800′s.  Of course, they didn’t have electricity back then, nor any of the fancy kitchen gadgets we have now.  In those days, all of the cooking was done in the fireplace.  If you visit OSV, you are likely to find a costumed interpreter demonstrating hearth cooking in any one of several exhibit houses.

The OSV cookbook is unique in that the recipes are presented both as they would have been cooked in the 1830′s, and the method for modern-day cooking.  So, if you have a fireplace and some cast-iron pans (which is what they used to cook in back in the day), and you want to give hearth cooking a shot, this book will show you how.  But, if you’re like me, living in a apartment and dreaming of having a fireplace one day, you can still re-create all of these great recipes the modern way!

The links I gave for both books go to Amazon.  But if you buy them directly from the museum shops, a portion of the proceeds goes to help support the museums, which I think is an important thing.  If you can’t get to these museum shops, you can always order the books from their online shops.

Happy reading…and eating!

*Disclosure: I am a member of both Old Sturbridge Village and Strawbery Banke museums, and was not compensated by them, nor by Plimoth Plantation, to promote the museums or their publications. I pay the annual membership dues just like everyone else who’s a member.  I purchased both of these books, and only got the standard 10% discount that all members receive.

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This is an excellent weeknight recipe, because you don’t need to cook a chicken from scratch to make it.  Most supermarkets have a prepared food/deli department that sells rotisserie chickens.

If you have Boston Market in your area (I know they are now in areas other than greater Boston), they are having a special where if you spend $19.99 or more on a Family Meal, you can get a rotisserie chicken for just $1.99.

I happened to have leftover roast chicken in the fridge, so that is what I used here.  Note that I cross-filed this in the toikey day category, as this could also be a turkey pot pie, using Thanksgiving leftovers.

The biscuit topping is much easier than having to roll out a regular pie crust.  Refrigerator biscuits are a perfectly acceptable ingredient, especially for the baking-impaired among us.  Pillsbury makes a good product here.

However, I had the time, so I made my own biscuits.  I have this cast iron drop biscuit pan, so I used that.

Another thing I did was make my own chicken stock, rather than buying it at the store.  There is certainly nothing wrong with the store-bought variety, so if you can’t be bothered to make your own stock, use it.  I recommend the Swanson brand here, and I prefer the boxed variety over canned.  With the boxes, if you don’t use it all in your recipe, you can just reseal it and keep it in the fridge.  Please be sure to buy the low-sodium variety, this is easy enough to find.  The regular kind is always too salty and can ruin your recipe.  Also, too much salt is bad for your health.

However, you can save money by making your own chicken stock.  I am a big advocate of using a slow-cooker to make stocks, it’s something I got from a book called Slow Cooker Ready & Waiting: 160 Sumptuous Meals That Cook Themselves by Rick Rodgers.  This is an excellent book that should be a part of the library of anyone who owns a slow-cooker.  BTW, I own four slow cookers!

The night before you plan to serve the pot pie, pick all of the meat from the chicken.  The skin can either be discarded, or eaten…I consider it to the the chef’s treat…LOL!  Put the chicken meat into a container and refrigerate until ready to use.

Put the chicken carcass into a slow-cooker that has at least a 5 quart capacity.  You don’t need to hack it up or anything, I just put it in whole.  Then roughly chop a couple of carrots, an onion, and a rib of celery with leaves, and put those in with the carcass.  I don’t bother to peel the onion or carrots.  Ass a couple of sprigs each of fresh parsley and thyme, about half a dozen whole black peppercorns, and a bay leaf.  If you don’t have fresh herbs, use a couple of pinches of the dried variety instead.  This recipe is NOT written in stone, use what’s on hand!

Add water to cover, put the lid on the cooker, and cook this on LOW overnight.  The next day, strain it into a metal pot and discard the solids.  They have given up all their flavor and nutrients to the stock, so they are not very good for eating.

If you are not going to use the stock right away, it is important to “quick-chill” it before you put it in the fridge.  This is why I told you to strain this into a pot.  Never attempt the following in the crockery insert of your slow cooker…cold water hitting the hot crockery will cause it to crack.  Then you’ll have nothing but a big mess and the need to buy a new crock-pot.

To “quick-chill”, close the drain on your sink and put the pot of stock in the sink.  Fill the sink with cold water, up to almost the top of the pot.  Don’t let any water get into the pot of stock!  This will quickly bring the stock down to a temperature where it’s safe to put it in the fridge, about 90 degrees F.  I know that doesn’t sound “chilled”, but it was much hotter than that before.  It’s all relative.

Never put anything in the fridge that is hot from the stove, oven, or crock-pot.  Always let it cool down first.  Putting hot food in the fridge not only reduces the efficiency of the fridge, but can also cause other foods therein to warm up and possibly spoil.  This was something that the chef-instructors hammered into our heads at culinary school, but it’s just as important in the home kitchen!

For a more intense flavor, I like to boil the stock down.  If you do this, just be careful not to boil it down too much, as you will need 2 3/4 cups of it for the pot pie.  Any stock not used for the recipe can be refrigerated for a few days, or frozen if you want to keep it around longer.

So, whether you use homemade biscuits and chicken stock, or store-bought, give this recipe a try.  It’s very easy and very, very tasty!

We are almost officially out of turkey.  Tonight Mike made himself a hot turkey and gravy sammich from what was left of the sliced breast meat.  Legs and wings…long gone.

All that’s left now is a container of turkey soup, which was made with the meat that got cooked off the carcass when I made the Slow Cooker Toikey Stock, Part Deux.  To make the soup, I used a slight variation of Alton Brown’s Bird to the Last Drop leftover soup recipe.

I did not use the vegetable stock, as I had a good amount of the turkey stock.  The Part Deux turned out to be a very thick, rich stock, even more gelatinous than the first go-round, the one I made before Thanksgiving with the turkey necks that I had bought.  You may recall that this original stock was used to make gravy and moisten stuffing.  Still, I had a good amount left, so that went into the crock pot with the hacked-up carcass and enough water to fill.

I strained out this stock, cooled it down, and put it in a container in the fridge.  When it was fully chilled, all of the fat floated to the top and hardened, that was easy to scrape off.  The stock underneath had gelatinized.  Meanwhile, I picked over the meat, put that into another container for the fridge, and discarded the bones.  Nothing more could I get out of them by this point.  I wrapped the bones very carefully before throwing them in the trash, because I didn’t want the cats to be able to easily get to them.  Poultry bones should not be given to kitties…nor dogs, they can splinter and cause choking.

When I was ready to make my soup, I dumped all of the thick stock into a large pot.  Since it was so very thick, I added some water to thin it out a bit.  The flavor would have been way too strong if I did not water it down.  When it was boiling, I threw in some uncooked egg noodles.  Yeah, I know AB calls for rice in his recipe, but I prefer noodles in my soup.  When the noodles were almost all the way cooked, I threw in the frozen veggies (which had been thawed), the meat, and the seasonings.  AB called for Old Bay Seasoning, dried thyme, salt & pepper, that is what I used.  Old Bay Seasoning is something that is more frequently used for seafood, and at first sounds odd in a turkey soup.  But I happened to have a tin of it on hand, and used it…it really does add something to the soup.  If you don’t have any, and don’t want to buy any, you could always just use poultry seasoning, or some other pre-made spice mix.  I like Emeril’s Essences and Paul Prudhomme’s Magic Seasonings, I always have a few varieties of those on hand, as well.  Or you can mix up your own spice blend.

So there you have it…all that is left from our Thanksgiving feast is a container of soup and a little gravy.  I think I will mix the gravy into the leftover soup to use it up.

For Christmas, I think we will have a ham.  Ham is a lot less work, as hams are already fully cooked.  And if you buy a spiral-sliced ham, which are usually on sale for under two bucks a pound this time of year, that is even less work.  I just heat it in the oven for about an hour or so, and then brush it with a glaze made of apply jelly and Dijon mustard.  Yummie!  Recipe to come soon!

Well, I hope you enjoyed all of my posts about our Toikey Day dinner, maybe you got something out of them.  Not anything worth money, such as diamond engagement rings or anything, but some good, practical advice.

Anyhoo, everything turned out very well.  But we’re not done yet!  Remember my post about slow-cooker turkey stock?  Well, now, how’s about slow-cooker turkey stock, part deux?

After we had our feast, I used my electric knife to dismantle the leftover turkey, and wrapped up slices of breast meat in one big piece of aluminum foil, and drums/wings in another.  That left me with a turkey carcass with plenty of meat still stuck to it.  This is NOT to be thrown away…not yet.

I hacked up the carcass into small enough pieces, and put them all into my 5 quart crock-pot.  We had a 13 pound turkey, it fit very nicely.  I had some of the original slow-cooker turkey stock left over after using it for stuffing and gravy, so I poured that into the cooker.  Then I topped it off with some plain old H2O, put the lid on, and let it cook on LOW all day.  If you didn’t make any turkey stock, or just don’t have any left over, just use all water.

Any meat that is left on the bones will fall right off after a good long cooking like this.  Strain the liquid into a pot, then put it into the sink (with the drain plug in), run cold water AROUND it, this will make it cool down quicker.  When it is cooled down, refrigerate.

As for the solids in the colander, when they are cool enough to handle, you need to pick through them and dispose of any bones or skin…any skin that’s been cooked in liquid that long gets all nasty and gummy.  There should be a good deal of meat left, and this you will use for turkey soup, turkey hash, turkey pot pie, turkey a la king (I sound like the Old Man in the movie A Christmas Story, don’t I?).

Soup is the easiest thing to make with these leftovers.  What I like to do is take some of the stock, put in in a large pot, and bring to the boil.  Throw in some egg noodles, and cook them in the stock.  Then throw in a box or bag of mixed frozen veggies (which should be thawed first).  You know, the variety that contains a mixture of green beans, peas, carrots, corn, and such.  And then add some turkey meat.  Season with salt and pepper and whatever else, to taste.  Exact amounts aren’t important, it depends on how much stock and meat you have sitting around.  Use your own good judgement.

Enjoy!

I almost forgot to post this!  If, per chance, you are planning to make a cornbread stuffing, save some dough and bake your own, rather than buying it.  You probably have most, if not all, of the ingredients already in your kitchen.

1 large egg
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Butter or grease an 8-inch square cake pan. Place all dry ingredients in a large bowl, whisk to combine. Whisk in egg, milk, and melted butter until just combined. Pour batter into the prepared pan, bake for 30 minutes on the middle rack of the oven.

Bake this the day before, at least, and leave it out to get stale, freshly baked bread is NOT good for stuffing! My cats seem to love this, and I have caught them nibbling on it. No need to toss it, it gets baked in the oven as stuffing anyway. Also, cats are cleaner than most people, even if they do lick their own butts.

“Kitty nibbles” never hurt anyone! LOL!