If you're anything like me, you can stand to eat Thanksgiving leftovers as is for one, maybe two days after the holiday. What, then, to do with the other six million pounds of leftovers that have suddenly taken over a whole shelf in the refrigerator? Remix them!

In music, the best remixes retain the highlights of the original song (whatever they may be) while adding a new twist that makes the production feel fresh. It's a small parameter to keep in mind while cooking that can yield a big change.

I realize that I wasn't the first person to think of coating balls of leftover mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes with panko flakes and pan frying until crisp, for example. But several invisible exclamation points hovered above the kitchen the evening after Thanksgiving a couple years ago when I found a new way to confront those heaps of starch.

If your party wasn't vegetarian, it's likely that turkey and/or ham makes up the bulk of the leftovers. It is here that I turn the controls over to five Bay Area chefs with brilliant ideas on how to make your leftovers feel like they're back for the first time.

Chef Jordan Mackey of Cuvée Napa

Chef Jordan Mackey of Napa's Cuvée restaurant has an efficient breakfast recipe that will swoop in and handle most of your leftovers in one go. He didn't find a way to include pumpkin pie in his Harvest Benedict, but there's just about everything else in it, including leftover ham, stuffing, biscuits, and vegetables.

Harvest Benedict
By Jordan Mackey

Makes: Four servings

Ingredients:
Some leftover sliced country ham
4 leftover biscuits, split
2 organic egg yolks
8 large organic eggs
8 oz. melted butter
¼ cup white vinegar
Kosher salt
Worcestershire sauce
Cayenne pepper
1 lemon
Some leftover stuffing
Leftover vegetables

Preparation:
For hollandaise sauce: Mix two egg yolks with a squeeze of lemon and about one tablespoon of water in a short and shallow mixing bowl. Set a shallow sauce pan half-filled with water, vinegar, and a healthy pinch of salt over medium heat. When water is simmering, place bowl with eggs over pot and whip until hot and thick like a custard. Gradually add melted butter until a smooth, thick sauce forms (as you add the whey from the butter, the sauce will thin slightly). Season with salt, cayenne, and a couple drops of Worcestershire sauce. Keep hollandaise sauce warm.

For Benedict: Reheat stuffing, ham, and vegetables in oven. Toast biscuits. Gently poach eggs in the simmering vinegared water. Place some ham on the cut side of the toasted biscuits and top with some hollandaise sauce. Enjoy with your delicious sides from last night.

Chef Tony Gemignani of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana: Joe Wollenhaupt

Most of us gravitate towards the turkey sandwich, and Tony Gemignani, owner of Tony's Pizza Napoletana, Tony's Coal-Fired Pizza & Slice House, and Tony Gemignani's International School of Pizza in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, has some simple ideas for making that sandwich a lot livelier than yours would have been, with flavors that are still reminiscent of Thanksgiving. When you’re picking up your loaves at Acme Bread Company, pick up an extra loaf of cranberry walnut bread for the day after.

Turkey Club
By Tony Gemignani

Makes: Two sandwiches

Ingredients:
6-8 oz. sliced turkey (thinner the better)
2 oz. cranberry sauce
4 pieces of cranberry walnut bread (Acme if possible), sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 oz. mayonnaise
3 slices provolone (3 oz)
Spring mix
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation: Spread a layer of mayonnaise on one slice of bread for each sandwich. Add half the turkey to each sandwich, top with cranberry sauce, provolone, and spring mix.

Chef Gaston Alfaro of Half Moon Bay Brewing Company: Justin Lewis

Another solution for felling your mighty leftovers in one big second meal is to make turkey casserole. Chef Gaston Alfaro of Half Moon Bay Brewing Company has a recipe that is about as easy as cutting up leftovers, mixing them in a dish with a splash of beer, and baking for less than 20 minutes.

Turkey Casserole
By Gaston Alfaro

Makes: Two portions

Ingredients:
¾ cup cut up turkey
½ cup roasted winter vegetables, diced (such as turnips, carrots, parsnips, pumpkin and onions)
¼ cup stuffing
1 tbsp dried cranberries
½ cup turkey gravy
Splash of beer, such as the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company’s Mavericks Amber Ale

Preparation:
Pre-heat oven to 350° F. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and pour into a casserole dish. Bake for about 17 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly.

Chef Bridget Batson of Gitane: Hardy Wilson

One surefire way to remix leftovers is to take them out of the Thanksgiving context altogether. Chefs Bridget Batson of Gitane and Anamika Khanna of Kasa Indian Eatery, both in San Francisco, both have turkey recipes that look to Asia for inspiration. Batson uses turkey for jook, a rice-based porridge popular in China, while Khanna fashions an Indian curry out of the bird.

Jook
By Bridget Batson

Makes: Two servings

Ingredients:
½ cup arborio rice
½ cup sushi rice
4-6 cups turkey stock (made from leftover scrap and veggies)
1 ginger finger, peeled and lightly crushed
Leftover turkey, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 bunch scallions, cut into rings
¼ bunch cilantro, chopped
Fried shallot rings
2 jalapenos cut into rings
1 fried egg

Preparation:
First combine the rice and rinse. Then, in the crock-pot, add the rice with 4 cups of the turkey stock and ginger finger. Bring to a boil stirring occasionally (you can also put the crock pot on auto mode). Once the mixture has boiled, turn down to low. Let simmer for 1 ½ to 2 hours, occasionally stirring. Add more stock if needed. When done, the rice will be tender and creamy. Remove the ginger finger and then fold in your leftover turkey and garnish with the scallions, cilantro, fried shallots and jalapeno. Top with a fried egg.

Chef Anamika Khanna of Kasa Indian Eatery. Photo Courtesy of Kasa Indian
Eatery

Leftover Roast Turkey Curry
By Anamika Khanna

Makes: Two servings

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 white onion, very finely chopped
1 tomato, blended
3 cloves garlic, finely crushed
1 tablespoon ginger, finely chopped
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon freshly ground coriander seeds (in a mortar and pestle)
1 whole green chile such as serrano, jalapeno, or bird’s eye, finely chopped
Juice of 1/2 a lime
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 tablespoon plain yogurt
2 cups leftover turkey, cut into bite-sized pieces
Fresh cilantro to garnish
Salt to taste

Preparation:
Heat the oil in a medium deep pan and add the onion. Fry on medium heat until medium brown in color, approximately 10 minutes. Add the ginger, garlic, chile, cumin, and coriander seeds and fry for a further five minutes until the onions are dark brown. Now add the tomatoes, turmeric, salt, and yogurt. Fry for five minutes more. Stir in the bell peppers and turkey and fry for a couple of minutes on high heat, so all the flavors go into the turkey. Add two cups of boiling water, lower the heat, cover the pan, and simmer for 6-7 minutes until the peppers are tender. Squeeze in the lime juice and garnish with cilantro. Serve with plain boiled basmati rice and crunchy long cut cucumbers and red onions dressed with salt, pepper, and fresh lime juice.

When you adhere to a special diet, whether it be for medical or ethical reasons, Thanksgiving changes. A lot. This is probably the truest for vegans, who eschew the most iconic part of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner: turkey. There are countless vegan meat alternatives out there for folks celebrating their non-omnivorous lifestyle, but there is a growing faction of veg* folks who believe that if you're really giving up noshing on other living things, eating meat analogues just feels inherently wrong.

So what's a culinarily-savvy vegan to do when the holiday often referred to as "Turkey Day" rolls around? Those living in the Bay Area are lucky to be surrounded by some the most diverse food-centric masterminds in the country, so there's no end to vegan options for those who aren't interested in dressing up a processed, gluten-laden Tofurky and calling it Thanksgiving dinner. Besides, November is officially "VeganMoFo," or the Vegan Month of Food -- so if there's any month where autumn vegan recipes are most prolific, it's this one.

When I was vegan -- back before my food allergies kicked into high gear and I learned that meat was the only thing I could actually digest without a myriad of debilitating side effects -- I put a lot of thought into creating my first epically vegan Thanksgiving feast. I made vegan collard greens, Indian-spiced chickpea pancakes, stuffing decked with nuts and fruit, and one of the most drop-dead gorgeous pecan pies my friends had ever laid eyes on. So, I can tell you firsthand that turkey isn't a requirement for a handsome Thanksgiving dinner.

One thing we can be thankful for is the fact that the Bay Area is home to a handful of vegan bakeries, where you'll find a selection of tantalizing sweet treats to pick up if you're not into making your own dessert. I've heard wonderful things about Sugar Beat Sweets' apple pie, a cinnamon-infused creation filled with spiced apples and topped with vanilla bean buttercream and caramel. Wholesome Bakery's sweet potato pecan pie is up there on my Top 10 Favorite Desserts list, vegan or otherwise, while Nabolom Bakery in Berkeley offers a great selection of vegan desserts.

What about dinner? Wayward vegans sans dinner plans can bounce over to Cafe Gratitude for their annual free Thanksgiving dinner from 11am-3pm, where everything on the menu is 100% raw and free of animal products. Oh, and did I mention that the meal was on the house? Yup, you heard that right.

But in the end, Thanksgiving is all about what you make at home, for your loved ones. This vegan pumpkin pie recipe is one of my favorites, and it's evolved over time to include pecans and cashews, with a little orange juice in the crust to give it a little something extra. My [staunchly omnivorous] family loved this pie, and you will too.

Nutty Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Makes: two 8-inch pies

Ingredients:

Crust

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup chopped cashews

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

4 teaspoons sugar

1 stick of cold shortening, cut into 10 slices
3 tablespoons cold orange juice

Filling

16 ounces silken tofu

2 cups pumpkin puree
3/4 cup agave nectar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon mace
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

Preparation:

Crust
1. In a food processor, grind flour, cashews, salt and sugar until coarsely ground. Add shortening one slice at a time and pulse until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add orange juice and pulse for another 15 seconds.

2. Divide the dough in half and smash each half into a flat disc. Cover and refrigerate for three hours. Once the dough is chilled, roll each half out into 9-inch circles and place each into an 8-inch pie pan. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Filling
1. Preheat oven to 400 F.

2. Add tofu, pumpkin, sugar, agave, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, and spices to a food processor and blend until creamy.

3. Pour filling into pie shell and sprinkle the top with pecans, pressing them into the pumpkin filling. Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the pie comes out clean. Allow to cool fully before serving. Top with vegan whipped topping.

If you're looking for more vegan recipes to help celebrate Thanksgiving, here are a handful of useful links that will inspire you to create the dinner of your dreams, a spread so grand that your omnivorous friends will look on in utter envy of your vegan-rific culinary prowess.

• Can you create a vegan Thanksgiving dinner in one hour? You betcha.
• Vegan recipes from the Splendid Table radio show
• Chef Chloe Coscarelli cooks up an delectible T-day, vegan-style
• Lauren Ulm presents her now infamous seitan roulade with chestnut stuffing
• Beer glazed pumpkin bread? Yes, please.
• Heidi Swanson offers up a ton of vegan recipes, perfect for Thanksgiving

On a recent trip to Italy I dropped into a temporary shack set up just like a Christmas tree lot but this one featured all things "chestnut." You could sit down to eat some freshly roasted chestnuts and drink a glass of wine before moving on for your evening. There was also a variety of prepared chestnut products as well as raw chestnuts you could purchase. The place was quite packed and the warmth from the roaster was comforting in contrast to the cold wind blowing outside.

At this time of year across Northern Italy you'll see roasted chestnut stands on street corners of cities large and small. These businesses are the Italian version of pumpkin patches and Christmas tree lots, completely seasonal and a reminder of more modest times. The vendors take up their position on corners and piazzas, roast chestnuts over an open fire and sell them for a few bucks in paper cones. You'll see the skins strewn across cobblestone streets as people munch while strolling. Chestnuts are omnipresent this time of year in Northern Italy on menus, in markets and in the orchards that carpet Piedmont.

This encounter got me thinking about why we don't see chestnuts as publicly available in the Bay Area. I had a minor eureka moment and remembered that years ago the Chronicle had mentioned that you could collect chestnuts somewhere in San Mateo County. Upon my return I took a quick trip down to Skyline Chestnuts and did some gathering. Apparently, the chestnut season is fairly brief. It started mid-October and ends this weekend before Thanksgiving so if you are interested in DIY chestnut collection don't delay!

The drive down is a great experience unto itself. In less than an hour from San Francisco you enter into a completely rural landscape. Should you take the quick route down 280 you turn west on Sand Hill Road and climb through the economic strata: Massive houses, equestrians hugging the road and packs of people on really nice bikes. Then you reach the redwoods and classic coastal California. Hairpin turns pull you onto ridges that yield pristine views of the entire bay one minute, then rolling hills descending into the Pacific the next. Along the way you can stop to pick up a picnic or even a glass of wine because Thomas Fogerty winery lies directly in your path.

Once you arrive at Skyline Chestnuts the process is easy. You show up and the proprietors, Hans and Donna Johsens, give you a bucket and some heavy leather gloves and then point you down the trail where you'll find a series of chestnut trees and the ground carpeted by nuts and the bristly pods that contain them known as burrs. Most of the nuts are already nude on the ground so the collection process is pretty straightforward. Occasionally you'll find some that haven't completely emerged from the burrs so you'll need to pry them out with your securely gloved hands. Collect until you're content and enjoy San Mateo County's open space because it's quite amazing. You might also want to gather some of the burrs as well -- they make great table decorations for Thanksgiving.

Now what do you do with your bounty? Roasting is by far the easiest and most traditional way. Skyline Chestnuts sells chestnut knives which makes the process easier. They also sell classic roasting pans and recipe books. To roast them score each chestnut with an X on the flat side and place a bunch in a roasting pan at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. Check them periodically and once the corners of the X point upwards they should be done. Take them out and place the chestnuts in a towel, twist it so that they all crack and then serve. It will still take some work to peel them but it's a great post prandial event or even a great early evening event for kids.

The process of skinning chestnuts can be rather laborious but if you have a few people gathered around a table it can be a pleasant social activity and the rewards are worthwhile. As an ingredient, chestnuts are an excellent addition to many types of dishes. There's nothing quite like the taste of truly fresh chestnuts tossed into salads, sauteed with Brussels sprouts or in cakes and soups. Recipes abound and stretch across all meals and courses so dive into that cookbook collection or search online resources. I've included a few recipes to get you started. With Thanksgiving a week away I urge you to consider adding chestnuts to your feast because they add a completely different flavor to the mix.

• Chestnut Gnocchi with Robiola Cheese Sauce
• Marrons aux Oignons et Quetsches (Chestnuts, Onions and Prunes)
• Stewed Chestnuts With Ricotta
• Chestnut Stuffing
• Sauteed Leeks and Chestnuts
• Celery Root and Chestnut Soup With Brussels Sprouts

It's snuck up on all of us. Somehow it's time to start making shopping lists and gathering recipes. Thanksgiving is upon us, my friends. And for me, that means pie prep.

Unlike the turkey and side dishes, you can get a major jump start on your pies. And personally I'm a big advocate of this; there's something about pies that beg to be done slowly and methodically. Pies don't lend themselves well to the chaos and heat of the Thanksgiving day kitchen. So today I'm going to give you some great tips on this year's pie-making and a few no-fail pie recipes to get you started in case you need a little inspiration.

Pie Dough

Depending on the kind of pie you're making, you want to think about your dough. As a general rule, I'm a big Martha Stewart pate brisee fan. Martha has given us a simple butter crust that never fails. If you're open to using lard in your crust, it makes an uber-flaky pastry; consider leaf lard for the very finest, flakiest crust known to man. And now, a few tips I've come to live by:

• Use good, high quality butter that is no more than one week old. Butter will absorb subtle odors/flavors from your refrigerator if left stored for too long. Like any ingredient, use the freshest butter available.
• Cut your pieces of butter into small, small pieces quickly. You don't want them to get warm. And ensure they're all covered in flour before starting to but them into your dry ingredients.
• When clumps begin, stop! Overmixing your dough leads to tough dough and no one wants that. It should still look a bit crumbly but hold together when pressed in between two fingers.
• Chill and allow dough to rest before and after rolling. That's right: put your pie back in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes after being assembled and before going in the oven. It'll bake up much nicer this way (and won't shrink when baked). Trust me.

Do Ahead

Pie shouldn't be stressful. Enjoy the process. So start now.

• Your disks of pie dough can be easily frozen for up to 6 months. Wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and allow to thaw completely in the refrigerator before rolling.
• You can actually make the entire pie and freeze for up to 3 months. If you decide to go this route, make sure to wrap the unbaked pie tightly in two layers of plastic wrap and then aluminum foil. You can allow to thaw in refrigerator for at least 8 hours before baking, but I prefer baking it straight from the freezer. This yields really nice crust. The only thing to watch for here is to ensure that your pie plate can handle the extreme temperature change (Disposable ones obviously can, Pyrex cannot). This works for apple pie beautifully, but I would avoid doing this with cream-based pies.

Navigating the Filling

In The Joy of Cooking's All About Pies and Tarts, Rombauer, Becker & Becker talk at great length about pie fillings. In many ways, the filling of a fruit pie is quite basic. You've got your fruit, sweetener/spices and some kind of thickener like flour or cornstarch. And the gals from this beloved reference prefer cornstarch or tapioca for clearer, more subtle fillings. However, when making an apple pie, they favor using flour because it imparts more of a creaminess which is appropriate for the fall favorite. And if you're doing a pie with a lattice top, they suggest using cornstarch or flour rather than tapioca because the tapioca doesn't always completely dissolve in the filling and the last thing you want is a grainy looking pie. A good rule of thumb: use twice as much flour as cornstarch or tapioca in any recipes that calls for the latter two.

Crimping, Vents, and Other Flair

Most people consider this the pie-maker's signature so give a little thought to what you'd like yours to be. Do you want to crimp your edges with a fork or quickly shape them into a fluted rim? How many vents will you use? Do you like the little fall leaf cut-outs? I find for an apple pie, a simple three-vent with an egg wash and sprinkled sugar on the top makes the most perfect, classic looking pie. Pay attention when you're in bakeries or grocery stores to see what other folks do, and emulate away!

Starter Recipes

• Very Pumpkin Pie from the Flour Cookbook via Blue-Eyed Baker
• The Ultimate Caramel Apple Pie from Tyler Florence
• Sweet Potato Pie with Pecan Topping from Simply Recipes
• Quick Mincemeat Recipe from David Leibovitz

Do you have any family favorites you'd like to share? What are your favorite pie recipes?

I'll admit it: I'm fickle. Sure, I've been swearing my undying pumpkin love these last few weeks. But sometimes, you reach perfection, and then you can let go and move on.

Walking down 18th Street with a little time to kill last week, I found myself--hey, how did that happen?--strolling right past Bi-Rite Creamery and its adorable soft-serve sidekick. Which just happened to be serving pumpkin soft-serve.

Well, OMG, as the kids say. Utter heaven, even better than the regular pumpkin ice cream at Scoops in Fairfax and Mitchell's in the Mission, my previous two standard-bearers for frozen pumpkin joy. Monday is their designated pumpkin day. Don't miss it!

So now, onto the other joys of autumn. Pomegranates! Red Starkrimson pears! Poached quinces! Shredded Brussels sprouts sauteed with pancetta! And chestnuts, lovely, shiny brown chestnuts.
Chestnuts, like quinces, take some dedication. These are not easy-munching foods. Quinces, cement-hard and astringently tannic in their raw state, need a long slow simmer in a nicely sugared bath to reveal their true mellow deliciousness. Chestnuts are rock-like and double-wrapped, with a glossy shell outside and a clingy, monkey-furred layer inside. You cannot eat them as is; they must be boiled or roasted to release the shell and soften the nut into delectable, sweet crumbly pastiness. And once cooked, you've got to work fast; getting the nut clear is only possible while it's still warm. You will shred the tops of your thumbs and end up with bits of chestnut meat caked under your nails.

So, by all means, spend the extra dough and buy them already peeled and jarred or vacuum packed at your favorite gourmet store. Me? Well, I'll be roasting and peeling, because can't resist the seasonal beauty of the nuts in their raw and shiny state, found at this time of year at both farmers' markets and in the supermarket. Also, because it just doesn't feel like the holidays without a sacrifice made to the demanding chestnut gods.

And while Thanksgiving at my house demands chestnuts in the stuffing, I do sometimes regret burying all that work in a panful of bready mush.

Last year, housesitting in a gorgeous Victorian complete with formal dining room, I decided to throw an elegant sit-down dinner for 12 for New Year's Eve, a party with complete with champagne and crab hors d'oeuvres in the living room to start, and popovers and chestnut soup as the first course. The inspiration was the Viennese-inspired, velvety-rich chestnut soup served at New York City's Cafe Sabarsky. Kurt Gutenbrunner, the chef at Sabarsky (as well as at its sister restaurants, the elegant Wallse and the bier-und-wurst Blau Gans), takes his soup to an elaborate extreme, making a woodsy mushroom-stock base, dropping in a surprise depth charge of brandy-soaked prunes, and topping the whole with a frothy cloud of steamed milk seasoned with nutmeg and dried porcinis smashed to powder.

But you know, with a multi-course meal, something (or your sanity) has got to give, and so I created a stripped-down version, minus the prunes and porcini, that still managed to capture the essence of a late autumn tramp through the woods.

You can make it several days ahead of time and heat up at the last minute (always useful when entertaining). It's intriguing without being weird, and elegant without being overly rich or madly expensive to make.

In weight and presentation, it's similar to a lobster bisque, but without the whole squirming-crustacean-dying-at-your-hands issue, which, frankly, is just too much to deal with when you're running out at the last minute for more butter, trying to find the guest towels and wondering whether you need to iron the napkins.

Chestnut Soup

Serves: 6, as a first course

Ingredients:
25-30 fresh whole chestnuts, or 1 cup peeled chestnuts
3 tbsp butter, divided
2 shallots, peeled and diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 parsnip, peeled and diced
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 branch thyme, a bay leaf, and 4 or 5 sprigs of parsley, tied together
4 or 5 sprigs of parsley, minced
1/2 cup dry sherry or Madeira
3 cups chicken broth
½ cup heavy cream or half-and-half
3 tbsp crème fraiche
Freshly grated nutmeg
4 or 5 crimini mushroom caps, sliced, or 6 whole black trumpet mushrooms, halved lengthwise

Preparation:
1. To prepare whole chestnuts, cut a shallow "x" in the rounded side of each chestnut with a sharp knife. Roast at 325F until the meat is tender and the skin dries out and curls back. Peel chestnuts while still warm, otherwise skin will stick to the nut. Discard any discolored or wormy nuts.

2. Melt 2 tbsp butter in a saucepan. Saute shallots, carrot, and parsnip, stirring, until tender but not browned, approximately 5 minutes.

3, Add chestnuts. Sprinkle in a few pinches of salt and maple syrup, and cook, stirring, until chestnuts are golden-spotted and lightly caramelized, 2 to 3 minutes. Add sherry, and cook, stirring, over low heat for another 2 to 3 minutes.

4. Add herbs and chicken broth, and simmer gently for 20-25 minutes, partially covered. Remove herb bundle.

5. Let cool for a few minutes, add cream, then puree in a blender. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt, pepper, or sherry as needed. For extra smoothness, crank through the fine disc of a food mill or pass through a fine-mesh strainer.

6. Melt remaining tablespoon of butter over medium-low heat. Add mushrooms and cook until lightly browned on one side. Using a spatula, turn mushrooms over and brown remaining side. Remove from heat and set aside.

6. Return soup to the pan and warm gently. To serve, top with a spoonful of crème fraiche and a few slices of mushroom. Grate a little fresh nutmeg over crème fraiche.

Gluten-Free Dinner Rolls. Photo by Jeanne Sauvage

Thanksgiving, routinely a flour-heavy culinary event, is my favorite holiday -- so you can imagine what a bummer it was to learn that gluten was a key factor in the health problems I'd been battling for many years. While I was relieved to find the culprit in my health drama, I have to say that a lifetime of Thanksgivings sans pie, stuffing and dinner rolls made for a grim holiday season indeed.

I'm never one to back down from a challenge. Slowly, as I learned to bake using a completely new set of rules, I discovered that gluten-free baked goods can rival their wheaty counterparts. I learned how to make a gluten-free version of Thanksgiving stuffing, a fantastic butternut squash pie, and everything else that a normal person would sit down to enjoy with their loved ones. Sure, at first my family balked at my "weird" cornbread, but once they came around, they discovered that what I was making tasted good. Actually, I'd venture to say that my from-scratch versions tasted better than a lot of the prefab, processed stuff that my family normally layed out on the table during the holidays. But that's another post.

Somewhere out there, I know there's a person who's just gotten a diagnosis of celiac disease, or maybe someone they love has gotten the diagnosis. Either way, they're suddenly in a similar position as I was all those years ago, wondering what the hell to make for Thanksgiving dinner when you can't use white flour. Well, guess what? You're in luck! These days gluten-free resources are ripe for the picking, unlike a decade ago when they'd look at you funny if you walked into the grocery store and asked for brown rice flour and xanthan gum. Now, gluten-free blogs abound and bookstores have entire shelves dedicated to gluten-free cooking. To say we live in a time of gluten free bounty would be an understatement.

So what did I miss most about Thanksgiving once I learned I was gluten intolerant? What was the first thing I just had to recreate so that I could enjoy this holiday like a normal person? You might laugh at the simplicity of my needs, but I'll share anyways: it was the humble dinner roll. More than anything, I wanted a soft, warm roll that I could spread with a swath of sweet cream butter and soak up the pools of meaty gravy on my plate.

This year I found a gluten-free dinner roll recipe that puts mine to shame. This recipe comes from Jeanne Sauvage, an intrepid gluten-free baker who chronicles her adventures at The Art of Gluten-Free Baking. These light, airy rolls are perfect for soaking up any leftover turkey goodness, or for enjoying on their own whenever the carb fiend demands more than a bowl of rice.

Photo by Jeanne Sauvage

Gluten-Free Dinner Rolls for Thanksgiving
By Jeanne Sauvage of The Art of Gluten-Free Baking

Makes: about 20 rolls

Ingredients for Jeanne's gluten-free all-purpose flour mix:
1 1/4 cup brown rice flour
1 1/4 cup white rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1 cup sweet rice flour
2 scant teaspoons xanthan gum

Prepare the flour mix:

1. Sift ingredients together and store in the refrigerator.

Ingredients for dinner rolls:
Melted butter for pan and brushing tops of rolls
Tapioca flour for coating pan
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups warm (not hot) milk
2 tablespoons active dry yeast, such as Red Star
3 cups Jeanne's gluten-free all-purpose flour mix (recipe above)
1 tablespoon xanthan gum
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Prepare the gluten-free dinner rolls:

1. Butter muffin tins well and dust with flour.

2. In a small bowl, whisk sugar into warm milk. Add yeast and whisk to dissolve. Set aside to allow the yeast time to proof -- you'll know this is happening when it starts to get foamy on top.

3. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

4. In bowl of stand mixer, beat together eggs, apple cider vinegar and oil. Add yeast mixture, beat well, then add flour mixture, beating on high with paddle attachment for 3 minutes.

5. Spoon dough into prepared muffin tins, filling to 3/4 of each cup. With a butter knife that has been dipped in tapioca flour, cut a deep slash in the top of each roll. Don't worry if there's a little extra tapioca flour left on the rolls.

6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put muffin tins on top of stove to rise in close proximity to warmth of the preheating stove. Let rise until they have just about doubled in bulk, about 40 minutes. Once rolls have risen, brush the top of each with melted butter and bake in preheated oven until the tops are a nice golden brown, about 20 minutes.

7. Remove rolls from tins and place them in a towel-lined basket to keep warm. These rolls keep well, although you'll probably eat them all the day you bake them!

I'd like to share a few more recipes that I've grown to love over the years as I crafted the perfect gluten-free Thanksgiving dinner spread. These dishes are from people who truly love -- and live -- the art of gluten-free eating. You'll find them not only satisfying, but seductive, gratifying, and tantalizing to every centimeter of your palate.

• Pumpkin pie
• Acorn squash with cranberry apple stuffing
• Beef and mushroom rice bake with cranberries
• Green bean shallot salad & champagne vinaigrette

This post was supposed to end much differently. You see, we did something special at my house for Thanksgiving this year. I challenged my mom to a "Stuffing Smackdown." Now I'm one of those people that likes to do virtually everything homemade--and my mom does too, for the most part. But she likes bagged stuffing. In my unofficial stuffing research, I discovered that most people think adding their own combination of ingredients to Pepperidge Farm bags of stuffing counts as homemade. I don't. The challenge was on.

The sign on the front door greeting visitors

Now my good friend Creg raised a good point: "Didn't your homemade stuffing over the past few years really suck? If you're going to propose a throw-down, shouldn't it be something you're really good at?" Fair enough. Good point. My sister Zoe and I had tried two different recipes over the past few years and yes, they'd turned out pretty badly. One too soggy, one without much flavor. But this year was different. I decided to adapt this recipe, leaving out the cranberries, and adding a little more celery and sausage. How could cornbread sausage stuffing not win?

We set out, making our stuffing at separate times in the kitchen, asking family members for taste tests and hints about which way they were leaning. I considered bribes, but ultimately knew I didn't need any help. My stuffing would be the clear winner.

Mom and Megan with their final products

So folks arrived, Zoe made her famous holiday punch with ample vodka, Cointreau, and a bit of pomegranate juice. We caught up. We watched that really odd 80's dance party that they play on KOFY right around this time of the year. Then we set up the stuffing sampling area and called the troops in.

Stuffing signage and voting cards: ready and waiting

The rules were simple: you tried each stuffing. We didn't force any considerations on people (texture, flavor etc.)--we just wanted to know their gut reaction: which stuffing is the ultimate king? After voting, you were to fold up your ballot, put it in the top-secret glass, and my cousin Kelsey announced the winner at dinner.

Consulting each other on the best stuffing

Well, the fateful moment came. In the first line of this post, I might've given you a hint as to who won. I have to mention a quick caveat: I think having the stuffing in the bird is a huge advantage that we, somehow, need to take into account. My sister Rachael suggested someone (namely, her) needs to invent a stuffing separator for the bird so people have the opportunity to stuff it with two different recipes. Until she patents that, however, my mom's Pepperidge Farm stuffing was certainly more moist and flavorful although mine had more color, interesting textures, and the sausage was a bit hit. Sweet, sweet Kelsey decided we should mention the good things about the loser first--very diplomatic. She's had good teachers somewhere along the line. She spoke about how she found the sausage quite delicious. Then she went on to make the big announcement: It was 8-3, with Pepperidge Farm leading it this year. The "Traditional family-oriented really good stuffing" took down the "Rock me all night long stuffing."

It happens. My wheels are turning for what improvements can be made next year. And the cool thing: we've got other entrants lined up for the next go-around. My friend Creg mentioned he'll be entering, and my cousin Elliot is planning on bringing a recipe to enter into the mix. So while I think there were subtleties of my incredible stuffing that were lost on the under 12 crowd, who knew that we'd start a new family tradition?

For my mom's recipe, you need to simply consult the bag of Pepperidge Farm. A little broth, some onions and a little celery and call it a day. Now 8-3 is a pretty big loss. So why, you may ask, are you about to give me the recipe for that losing stuffing? While it's a fair and logical question, most everyone agreed that with a little more broth and a chance to sit in the bird's cavity, it would've been a close race. So this stuffing is quite tasty, I assure you. In fact, I just had some for breakfast. The cornbread is buttery and moist and the celery, leeks, and pecans add nice flavor and texture. And of course, who doesn't love sausage? So I encourage you to give this recipe a try next time your family decides to have a Stuffing Smackdown--or really any old time when you're looking for a hearty, fall side dish. I think you'll like it.

Rock Me All Night Long Cornbread Stuffing
Adapted from: Epicurious

For the recipe below, you make the loaves of cornbread first, dry them out in the oven, and then move on to the actual stuffing. Feel free to make the loaves one or even two days in advance as they can be as stale as can be for the stuffing.

Makes: 2 loaves

Ingredients (Cornbread Only)

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups milk
2 large eggs
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

Preparation (Cornbread Only)

1. Preheat oven to 400° F. and butter two 9-by-5-by-3 inch loaf pans.

2. Into a large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, and salt and whisk in cornmeal and sugar until combined well.

3. In a bowl whisk together milk and eggs until just combined. Add butter to flour mixture and with an electric mixer beat until mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat in egg mixture until just combined (batter will be thin).

4. Pour batter into pans and bake in middle of oven until golden and a tester comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool corn bread in pans on a rack 10 minutes and turn out onto rack to cool completely. Corn bread may be wrapped in plastic wrap and kept in a cool, dry place 2 days or frozen 2 weeks.

Ingredients (For Stuffing)

Makes: 12 cups

1 1/2 loaves corn bread
2 cups pecans
6 leeks (about 1 pound; white and pale green parts only)
4 celery ribs
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/4 pound sweet Italian sausage (about 4 links)
1/2 cup packed fresh flat-leafed parsley leaves
2 cups chicken broth

Preparation (For Stuffing)

1. Preheat oven to 325° F. Cut corn bread into 1/2-inch cubes and in 2 large shallow baking pans bake in middle of oven until just dry, about 25 minutes. Transfer cubes from 1 pan to a large bowl and in pan toast pecans in oven until insides are golden, 10 to 15 minutes. While toasting, chop parsley.

2. Halve leeks lengthwise and then cut crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces. In a bowl of cold water wash leeks well and lift from water into a sieve to drain. Chop celery. In a 12-inch skillet cook leeks and celery in butter with salt and pepper to taste over moderately low heat, stirring, until leeks are tender, about 25 minutes.

3. Remove sausage from casings and break into pieces. Add sausage to leek mixture and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes, or until sausage is cooked through.

4. To bowl of corn bread add pecans, sausage mixture, parsley, broth, and salt and pepper to taste and toss together. Cool stuffing completely. Stuffing may be made up to this point 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Bring stuffing to room temperature before proceeding.

For cooking stuffing inside poultry:

Any frozen poultry destined for stuffing should be completely thawed, and the stuffing itself brought to room temperature before it's put into the turkey. Do not stuff your bird the night before you cook it; such a seeming time-saver can have dangerous results. Instead, it is best to loosely fill the bird's neck and body cavities immediately before roasting. And always use a meat or instant-read thermometer: The meat is done when the temperature of the thickest part of the thigh (be careful not to touch the bones) reaches 180°F.; the stuffing baked inside the bird is done at 160°-165°F. After roasting, let your stuffed poultry stand 15 to 20 minutes, a double assurance that the requisite temperatures for food safety have been reached.

For cooking all or part of stuffing outside poultry:

In a shallow baking dish bake stuffing in preheated 325° F. oven 1 hour (for moist stuffing, bake covered entire time; for less moist stuffing with a slightly crisp top, uncover halfway through baking time).

Well Happy Black Friday, everyone, if there is such a thing.

Typically, I love Fridays. To me, the day means the promise of free time, friends, and martinis in any given order.

Usually, I see Friday as the bright, shiny spot to my week. Black Friday, however, is a different story:

If you are one of the 12 people who hasn't heard this term used ad nausæum over the past few days, "Black Friday" refers to today, the day after Thanksgiving, which is, according to retailers, the official first day of the Holiday Shopping Season-- a day when millions of American-types have the day off and, presumably, enough money burning holes in their pockets to warrant getting up at 4 am to trample some poor Walmart worker to death in search of great bargains.

It just makes me cringe. I want nothing to do with either the day or any of its trimmings.

To someone like me, who may have the bad fortune of having holes in his pockets, but the good fortune of having nothing burning anywhere near them, it makes sense to spend the Friday after Thanksgiving holed up in order to recover from the orgy of food, wine, friends, and family.

I don't want to leave the house. I want to curl up on a couch and watch movies, or sleep off the thousands of calories I consumed the day before. I don't want to go to Union Square to see how pretty the lights are on the giant Christmas tree, I don't want to think about Holiday cards, and I definitely don't want to go shopping-- not even for food. I will wait out the crazy in the comfort of my own home and wait for next week, when I can start humming one of my favorite tunes with conviction:

Until then, here's a recipe that might help you avoid the madness, too...

Turkey Hash with Sweet Potatoes

Serves 4 to 6

...or anything else you have that's left over from Thanksgiving dinner. All the ingredients should be on hand (which is precisely the point). Turkey, sweet potatoes, russets, onions-- you know you've got them. You've been on a role with the heavy food intake, so why not carry it over to breakfast? Oh, hell, you know you're going to carry it over until the New Year. I don't know who you think you're fooling if you say otherwise.

Turkey, on it's own, is boring (and potentially dry)-- it needs help. Sweet potatoes turn mushy and, naturally, sweet, so they need some assistance from their firmer, starchier friend, the Russet. All of them need salt to help them along, and salt needs them, otherwise, no one would us it and then where would it be? This is a beautifully co-dependent start to the day-after.

Ingredients:

2 cups diced turkey meat, white or dark

1 cup medium-diced onion

1/2 cup diced red bell pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup diced sweet potato, baked for 30 to 40 minutes in the oven. Or just pick off the marshmallows from the dish you had last night-- no one will notice, since the sweet potatoes will more than likely disintegrate during cooking.

2 cups baked, diced Russet potato

1 small jalapeño pepper, diced on the small side.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup turkey stock, if you still have some on hand. Chicken stock will do nicely, too. This dish needs a little moisture before browning to give the turkey a chance. For extra decadence, substitute 1/4 of heavy cream for the stock. Seriously.

About 2 teaspoons of salt-- more depending on taste. I like more.

A generous amount of freshly ground black pepper-- at least a teaspoon

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper.

Parsley for garnish. Or chives. Or whatever. I'm just into parsley these days.

Preparation:

1. In a large cast iron skillet, heat oil and butter over medium-high heat. Pre-heat your broiler to hi. Add onion and bell pepper and cooking, stirring all the while, until they begin to brown (3 to 5 minutes). Add garlic and jalapeño and cook for one minute more.

2. Add sweet potato, Russett potato, salt, and turkey at this point. Stir occasionally until the potatoes begin to brown (8 to 10 minutes). Add broth (and cream, if you are using) and cook down for another 3 or 4 minutes, shaking and scraping the pan from time to time. Taste to adjust salt levels, if you must.

3. To finish the browning by getting a nice crust on top, I like to stick my hash under the broiler for a couple of minutes-- obsessively checking it-- until such a state has been achieved. This is more than likely cheating in the minds of all good line cooks across this land of ours, but my skills are limited and I do whatever I must to attain my goals.

4. Sprinkle with the cayenne, grind over the pepper and add a little fresh green with a handful of parsley meted out over the top. Serve hot with poached eggs, or whatever else you've got left over from Thanksgiving that you think might work well with hash. Do not, however, serve with egg nog. To eat, curl up on couch, wrap yourself up in your favorite blanket or pashmina, pop in any vintage movie starring an adorable, precocious child like Margaret O'Brien, Natalie Wood, or Peggy Ann Garner, and go to town. Or, rather, don't, because that's where all the crazy people will be.

Thanksgiving is plated comfort, dinner to honor a lore-steeped narrative of the harvest, funneled through a few hundred years of regional cultural variations. The foods are invariably soft, uncomplicated: balls of mush in warm hues -- orange, brown, beige, and dull, vegetal green -- a crust here, a relish there -- nothing to stun or overwhelm. An ambitious menu might boast edgy updates of accepted classics, but themes are very rarely abused or flaunted, merely tweaked: one might endeavor to make sweet potato casserole, for example, re-imagined as a single perfect fritter on each plate, sidling up to tidy blobs of marshmallow-esque creme fraiche, shaded by fronds of fried sage.

So long as the chile-garlic sauce stays in the fridge and no pretentious foams materialize, side dishes may be mussed in a respectful fashion. Turkey, whole, however, is a most traditional yet often maligned centerpiece -- flightless, frequently bone-dry, and hard to budge. Every year, food writers fall over themselves trying to convince desperate cooks they've found an antidote -- brining, larding, frantic temperature adjustments -- when they'd better serve suppers by pushing far superior animal proteins -- say, glorious hams, sides of wild salmon, or haunches of venison.

Enter the turducken. Despite its cultish presence in the cozy Thanksgiving lexicon, the turducken is aggressively weird, an unnatural, misshapen, stitched-up Frankenstein-like thing -- something that perhaps resembled a "sneetch" in life -- prior to being butchered and baked. Still, as the steaming mass -- chicken, within duck, within turkey -- all boned and stuffed -- descends on an overloaded banquet table, accompanied by grand quasi-medieval pomp, hearty eaters think nothing of its artificial genus, gathering around to slice through and spill forth the intertwined meaty chunks in varied hues -- reveling in the surreal delicious guts of a very strange beast indeed.

For three years, I lived with a few turducken aficionados in a big house at the edge of the Mission District, close to Potrero Hill. They would stay up the entire night before Thanksgiving, boning and trussing. There were no good chef's knives in that house then, so strings of meat bounced dangerously around the room with every nip and tuck, and the kitchen floor eventually took on a fatty sheen from all the spills. We'd host big Thanksgivings too, with a long table to accommodate a mob of friends. There was always a lot to drink; the living room was always too dark; you usually couldn't even make out the color of what sat quivering on your fork -- that is, if you were sober enough to care by the time all the food was ready. I recall, on one boozy occasion, trying to separate out the excavated components of my turducken slice -- to appraise them each, and assess how their individual qualities affected the flavor of the opulent whole. At this, I failed.

Like most people who have studied up on the subject, I hold corpulent football personality John Madden responsible for the turducken's first wave of popularity. Until he had a change of heart in 2008, he used to gleefully dole out massive specimens to Thanksgiving Bowl victors. Bestowing credit for the preparation's actual invention, however, is a tougher proposition. Paul Prudhomme got a nod for a while, but his role -- attributed loosely to a 1983 appearance at a festival in Duvall, Washington -- has not been verified. In a November 2005 article in National Geographic, Calvin Trillin presented Herbert's Specialty Meats in Maurice, Louisiana as a long-running, immensely popular purveyor of pre-assembled 'duckens, but avoided making any claims about its involvement in the dish's origins.

The concept of matryoshka-style holiday roasts can stretch further out of the mainstream into relative gastronomic wilds, where history and legend hold a few smoldering lessons. The key to the success of a turducken is the duck. Its essence diffuses through the surrounding layers of stuffing to saturate its inherently less delicious comrades -- the chicken within, the turkey without -- with spurts of fat and heady flavor. Replacing the turkey with its opposite -- a silken, grease-spitting goose -- yields a gooducken, a much richer endeavor naturally quite beloved in England. I like the idea of losing the unctuous goose, retaining the turkey, and adding a fourth bird, perhaps even a fifth -- maybe a wee quail, petite and boneless, buried down in the depths, folded up around a hard-boiled egg, a single chestnut, or a minature wad of stuffing, and then, for the outermost layer, the fifth, an entire emu. Imagine that, an emurckenail. I'm not sure how emu -- fine-grained and somewhat beefy -- would jive with all that paler stuff but someone -- probably not me -- should find out.

After a brief bit of research, my fantasy was steam-rolled by a rough and very real bird-iathon slouching out of the past. The largest recorded "nested" bird roast, or Rôti Sans Pareil took place at a royal feast in France in the early 19th century, and involved a breath-taking 17 feathery creatures, all boned and stuffed into one another, in order, from smallest -- a six-inch-long Garden Warbler with a solitary olive squeezed into its tiny empty cavity -- to largest, a huge, currently semi-endangered terrestial bird with a wingspan of seven feet called a bustard. Fifteen other birds -- a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, and an Ortolan Bunting -- were pressed, skin to gut, between those two extremes.

What's more, Richard Sterling gave a pretty famous and utterly silly account of a chef friend's even heftier undertaking in his book The Fearless Diner:

"I knew in my gut, in my gastronomic soul, that what I had long hoped was true. That it wasn't just some wild traveler's tale designed to stir the imagination and not the pot. The ultimate cookout was a reality. The only thing that could possibly be greater would be to spit-roast a giant squid. My wildest culinary dream could come true. Sven, Allah bless him and may his tribe increase, had done it. 'I tell you no lie,' he went on, sipping a cold one. 'They wanted camel. I roasted a whole camel on a spit.' 'Yes!' I cried. 'Tell me everything.' And he did. He told me how he stuffed the camel with six sheep, stuffed the sheep with chickens, and the chickens with fish. He told me how it took 24 hours to cook, and that he served it on a silver platter in the shape of a recumbent camel. He related how the tribesmen who were the sheik's guests then attacked it with their knives en masse, feasted with their bare hands, and ate the meat down to the ivory."

If, for you, after all that, mere turducken will still do come November 26th, you can savor it without shelling out for shipping or expending any effort beyond tending the oven. While supplies last, Ryan Farr of the esteemed 4505 Meats is working the local turducken angle, selling 20 pound behemoths -- free range, organic, and stuffed to the hilt with cornbread-sausage dressing -- for $250 apiece, available for order and subsequent pick-up in Potrero Hill. The stuffing between the layers will be made of chicken-and-duck sausage and cornbread. Yours will arrive in a roasting pan, on a bed of root vegetables and herbs, with an electric thermometer and alarm probe already inserted.

Slip him an extra twenty and maybe he'll put a quail in there too.

Photos by Ryan Farr

So by now, you've gone shopping, gathered your wares, and hopefully if you are reading this, you are well along in the cooking process (if not, get off the computer and get busy!). But what do you do if it all goes horribly wrong...?

Ok, I’m not trying to be doom and gloom here. And I'm not talking about familial relations, you are on your own there. But in the food and feast arena, it is nice to be armed with a few helpful hints when you are juggling a minimum of six different dishes in the kitchen. Something is bound to not be perfect. So what do you do?

First of all, relax. There is a solution to every problem. Take a deep breath, a big swig of wine, and read on...

I burnt the turkey!
If you are left with an overcooked, dry turkey (which you probably won’t realize until it’s nearly too late) there’s not a whole lot you can do except try to mask it with moisture. My solution: Make gravy! Or at least more gravy than what you put out on the table.

First of all, if you’ve burnt the skin, no worries, just pull it off and discard it. Carve the turkey as you normally would and slice the meat into serving pieces. Put it in a large sauté pan. Thin about 3 cups of gravy with chicken stock and pour it over the meat. It should be enough to coat and barely cover the meat, but if not, add more. Simmer gently over low heat and serve it out of the pan.

Next year, consider brining your turkey to keep it moist and succulent. And set a kitchen timer.

My turkey is raw!
First of all, if you have a meat thermometer, use it! Before you take that turkey out of the oven. Stick it in the meaty part of the thigh, not touching the bone. It should be 165F to be fully cooked.

If you don't have a thermometer, and you've already started carving your turkey before realizing that it’s still gobbling, then never fear, you can still finish cooking it. First of all, the dark meat takes longer to cook than the breast, so chances are the breast is cooked perfectly. If not, stick the entire thing back in the oven until the juices from the thigh run clear when pierced with a knife.

If the breast is cooked (after you've carefully checked it with a small incision), and if you've stuffed the turkey, remove the stuffing, and put it in a roasting pan. Carve the legs and thighs from the turkey, and add those to the roasting pan, cover with foil and put it back in the oven for at least 30 minutes to cook through. Meanwhile, you can remove the breasts, carve them, transfer them to the serving platter, and tent with foil while you wait for the legs and stuffing to finish cooking.

My stuffing is all mushy!
I like my stuffing to be crispy on the outside and nice and moist on the inside, but if yours has gone a bit too moist, and hasn’t crisped up nicely, then simply spread it out on a baking sheet and stick it back in the oven (around 400F should do the trick).

I have lumps in my gravy!
It happens to the best of us and more often that you’d expect. The best thing to do is just put it through a fine-mesh sieve, although if you are like me and you use the neck to make a delicious turkey stock base for your gravy and then add the shredded neck meat to the final product, then you’ll lose the meat shreds. But you will still have all the flavor, and none of the icky, floury lumps.

I overcooked the vegetables!
If you’ve overcooked your broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, greens, or peas, just add some chicken broth and a little cream and puree it into a soup. Seriously. No one wants to eat mushy vegetables, but soup on the other hand is delicious. If the soup seems watery, boil a few potatoes and puree those into the soup as well. If you’ve already mashed all your potatoes, then stir in a scoop. Some grated Parmesan adds a bit of flavor too.

For overcooked Brussels sprouts, heat your oven to 450F and spread them out on a baking sheet. Drizzle with a little olive oil and roast them in the oven to brown and crisp and dry out a bit. OR, chop some bacon and fry until crisp, transfer to a paper towel. Add the Brussels sprouts to the pan and fry in the bacon fat over high heat to brown and crisp the edges. Transfer to a serving bowl and toss in the bacon. If that doesn’t work, compost them and start over with something else!

Where are the cranberries!?
As many times as you have been to the store, you are likely to forget something. If you remember in time to call one of your guests before they arrive, have them pick up a bag of fresh cranberries as it’s super easy to make: Put a bag of cranberries, 1 cup of orange juice and 1 cup of granulated sugar into a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the cranberries pop and the mixture thickens, about 10 minutes. Let cool to room temperature and serve.

If that doesn’t work, you can use other fruits to make a tangy side for your turkey. Saute some sliced apples or pears in a little butter, white wine, brown sugar; simmer some frozen cherries with orange juice and sugar to taste; or just pull out a jar of chutney.

Hopefully some of these tips will solve the worst of your problems. And if anyone else out there has new and interesting ways to make the most out of a kitchen disaster please let me know! I hope everyone’s feast turns out amazing, over-the-top, and delicious.

Happy thanksgiving.