So you might be asking the question “What can I do to change it up a bit…add some sass to the meal without everyone screaming foul?”

How about making a few changes to your side dishes. After all, it is really the sides that steals the show on the holiday table — the supporting cast that props up the celebrity bird, robust ham, crab or vegetarian main– the unsung heroes. Here are two easy-to-make dishes that will add unique yet familiar flavors to the holiday meal.

The first one is a beet salad with pear and Mandarin oranges. The pear adds a wonderfully unique texture to the salad while the floral acidity of the orange helps to complement the fatty quality of the mains. It’s a great dish for people that SWEAR that they don’t like beets.

Roasted Beet and Pear Salad with Satsuma Mandarin Orange

Serves: 6

The beets can be cooked one or two days in advance.

Ingredients:
3 lbs medium to large sized Chioggia beets. Conventional is fine
1 ripe pear, cut into to thick match sticks
5 mandarin oranges, 4 for salad and 2 for juice
½ red onion, thinly sliced
2 heaping tablespoons, champagne vinegar
1 tablespoon, extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Cut off beet stems and wash really well. Place beets in a baking pan and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.

3. Cover dish with aluminum foil and bake for 1-1 1/2 hrs. At the hour mark take out and pierce with the tip of a paring knife or toothpick to check if finished. Some larger beets might need an additional 15-25 minutes depending on how stubborn they are. When cooked, remove and let cool.

4. When cool, simply take an old kitchen towel and rub off the skin. Cut off both ends and then cut beets into 4, 6 or 8 piece wedges, depending on desired size. Place into bowl.

5. Juice the 2 oranges and set aside. Peel and rough chop the other 4.

6. Slice the pear and then cut into thick match sticks.

7. To finish, place all the ingredients into a bowl and toss.

Notes:
* It’s very important to not over mix the salad as it will look distressed.
* Try to mix the salad while the beets are still warm as it will absorb the juices better.
* The salad should be made and consumed on the same day as the pear will start to get mushy and discolor.

The next recipe is a breath of fresh air to the good old classic, green bean casserole. Most of us remember this dish as overcooked green beans and fried onions saturated in canned mushroom soup.

I wanted to give this dish a unique flavor without altering it too much. I found that fennel, leeks and a shot of Pernod did just that. The sweet leeks and slight liquorice flavor paired nicely with the earthy mushroom cream and fresh green beans. I also removed the tired old onions and replaced them with toasted pecans and buttery breadcrumbs. The last thing to note is that it’s not as rich and creamy as you might remember. I purposely made it so that the beans are coated in the cream but not drenched. It makes for a more vibrant textured dish.

Green Bean Casserole with Fennel, Leeks, Pernod and Toasted Stuffing

Serves: 6

Ingredients:
2 lbs. blue lake green beans
1 lb. button or cremini mushrooms, washed and sliced
1 bunch leeks, chopped and washed
½ fennel bulb, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
Teaspoon, fresh picked thyme
Shot of dry white wine
1 cup heavy cream
¼ cup vegetable stock
3 heaping tablespoons, Pernod
½ cup, chopped and toasted pecans
2 cups stuffing mix (cubes of bread)
Olive oil
Butter
Salt and pepper

Preparation:
1. Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees

2. Cook beans in salted boiling water, roughly 4 minutes. Remove and shock in ice water. Cut the beans in half.

3. Place a sauce pot on high heat and add a teaspoon of cooking oil. Get it super hot and then add the mushrooms. Sauté the mushrooms quickly and then remove from pan. You want them to be brown, crispy and somewhat dry.

4. Turn down heat to medium low; add another teaspoon of oil and a small amount of butter. Add leeks and fennel. And cook until soft. At that point add garlic and thyme and cook for a couple minutes more.

5. Deglaze the pan with wine. Stir and let cook for 30 seconds. Add heavy cream and turn down to low. Stir mixture and let the cream reduce by almost ¾. This will make the mixture thick and sweet! Add vegetable stock and reduce by half.

6. Season mixture with salt and pepper.

7. In another pan melt a tablespoon of butter. Cook until it starts to turn brown. Add bread/stuffing mixture and stir. Remove from heat.

8. In a large bowl toss the beans, mushrooms, fennel cream and pecans together. Add a titch more salt.

9. Place in a casserole dish and cover with stuffing mixture. Place in oven and bake for 10 minutes. Then crank up broiler and crisp up stuffing. Depending on your broiler I would think that 30 seconds would do the trick.

10. Remove and serve hot!

Notes:
* The salt in the bean cooking liquid is twofold. It flavors but also helps retain the green color.
* Make sure not to overcook the beans! A little under done is better than over cooked.
* Taste the mixture before you add stuffing and bake. You might want more Pernod or seasoning.
* You can also use stale bread and make your own topping.

Since this is my first go around with BAB I wanted to introduce myself with something short, creamy, cold and sweet. As for me, I’m simply a cook with food dreams and an active imagination. And lucky for me, cooking is also my profession.

Like clockwork, as local strawberries start to trickle in, so do the slew of seasonal recipes that appear in print and in tons of blogs. Timeless dishes such as trifle, shortcakes, pie, creams and custards consume the majority of the recipes indexes. Yes, of course, they all have merit and nothing beats a perfectly ripe strawberry, but what drives my imagination as a cook is coming up with something new and innovative. This concoction came to my mind while recently looking over an image for a strawberry milkshake.

As much as I love fruit milkshakes they sometimes taste weak as the fruit gets lost in sweet dairy notes or in heaps of sugar. So, how do you make something more pronounced and less diluted? Or better put, how do you get a particular ingredient to come to the surface. In the cooking world the techniques we usually apply are centered towards reducing, roasting or dehydrating; this makes foods more complex and sharp. With vegetables and fruits roasting and dehydrating extracts the natural sugars making them more intensely sweet. My good friend Chef Roger Feely turned me on to slow roasting strawberries years ago as something spectacular to garnish desserts with. I have been consumed with them ever since! And just like that, while glancing at that image for the strawberry milkshake this shake idea was born.

I give credit to our pastry chef Juliann for the malt ball idea. She suggest malted chocolate as a complimentary garnish with good symmetry for the shake, but when the words soy lecithin and foam came into the conversation I shut down and decided to go conventional. Great flavor combo, so thanks for the suggestion Juliann!

I’m pretty sure this is an original so I’m very happy to bring it to you fresh on BAB!

Slow Roasted Strawberry Milkshake with Crushed Malt Balls

Makes: 2-3 servings

Ingredients:

For the Strawberries:
1 pound strawberries, tops removed and halved
¼ cup sugar
1 fresh vanilla bean, seeds removed
Pinch salt

For the Shake:
1 pint, super premium ice cream (16% fat, low air)
¾ cup whole milk
¾ of the roast strawberries; save some for garnish

Garnish:
2-3 roast strawberry halves
1 tablespoon of crushed malt balls

Preparation:

1. Turn on oven to 250 degrees, Fahrenheit
2. Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla bean
3. Break up the clump of vanilla seeds with finger tips.
4. Toss the berries with sugar, salt and vanilla bean.
5. Slow cook in oven for 2 hours, uncovered, pull and let cool
6. Crush 6 malt balls with a mallet or heavy pan
7. Place ice cream in blender with milk, strawberries and some reserved syrup. Blend until just mixed. Thin it out with milk if too thick.
8. Pour into glasses and garnish with reserved strawberries, syrup and crushed malt balls