Sweet Tea and Tacos

Laughter and Lessons in Thanksgiving Fest Preparations

• Sweet Tea and Tacos

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Ever found yourself bewildered in the produce aisle, mistaking cilantro for parsley? We've been there, and during our latest gabfest on Sweet Tea and Tacos, Dave and I share that laugh-out-loud tale, among others, as we reminisce about the Thanksgiving sides that have graced—and sometimes disgraced—our holiday table. Tune in for a hearty serving of nostalgia as we chat about the recipes handed down through generations, like the secret to the perfect Southern dressing and the surprisingly simple pleasure of whipping up fresh cranberry sauce. Trust us, you'll come away with not just stories to chuckle over but also a slew of tips to make your feast unforgettable.

Moving from the mishaps to the mastery of the Thanksgiving spread, we tackle the revered tradition of gravy-making. It's not just about getting that white sauce base right—it's a culinary expedition to craft the silkiest, most flavor-packed accompaniment for your turkey. And if you've ever pondered the perfect way to entice picky eaters to try brussel sprouts, you won't want to miss the revelations we bring to the table. So, pull up a chair, pour yourself some sweet tea, and indulge in the warm, delightful banter that is Sweet Tea and Tacos, where we're serving up more than just food—we're dishing out a feast for the soul.

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Dave:

Welcome to Sweet Tea and Tacos. I'm Dave.

Jen:

And I'm Jen.

Dave:

And this time on the Super Bowl of Food, continuing episode three sides, thanksgiving sides. So obviously we talked about turkey, but you gotta have some things go with it and you have traditional things right so I think probably what the number one thing people think of is what dressing and stuffing. Yeah, I think that'd probably be the first thing I do too, and cranberries and cranberries would be probably the next one yeah or maybe those would be neck and neck, yeah, um so stuffing slash dressing.

Jen:

Yes, okay, so you know, we live in the South down here it's called dressing and it's a little bit different than what you think of, maybe, as stuffing. Yeah, stuffing is more of a bread-based Yep. Now, dressing can have some bread in it.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jen:

Some breadcrumbs and things or some rice, but it's mainly a cornbread-based thing, yeah.

Dave:

Now my dad. His family is more from the. Midwest area so he grew up with a sausage stuffing. Yeah, they didn't stuff it, but they called it a sausage.

Jen:

I don't think anybody does that anymore.

Dave:

I think most people don't, yeah, and it's a bread and sausage and celery.

Jen:

It's actually really good.

Dave:

Parsley yeah, but it's like wheat bread, cubed up and dried Big cubes of bread you know, but yeah, I really, and like I think it puts water chestnuts in it and things like that.

Jen:

It's really good, yeah, and I think it puts water chestnuts in it and things like that.

Dave:

It's really good, yeah, but I never really grew up eating cornbread dressing until we started dating. Yeah, but man, the cornbread dressing is great. We just, we always make as much as we can.

Jen:

Yes.

Dave:

And it always gets eaten. It always gets eaten.

Jen:

Yeah, there's no worries there so if you're not familiar with it which you know, I know people who are living in our area are probably very familiar, but if you're not, uh, you make cornbread, you crumb it up or cube it up yeah, but probably crumb it with a food processor yeah, something yeah, and it usually goes to crumb pretty easily, right it does. And then you saute vegetables like onion, bell pepper, celery, green onion. We put parsley, parsley like some.

Dave:

Not cilantro.

Jen:

Yeah, there's a story there. There's a story there.

Dave:

So yes, when we were dating, I'll tell a food embarrassing story.

Jen:

It was either when we were dating or first married.

Dave:

First married one of the two I got sent to the store, to you know.

Jen:

Buy the veg and stuff Provision. Yeah.

Dave:

And I'm going to blame this on the grocery store that the cilantro and the flat leaf parts, because they use flat leaf Italian parsley, yes.

Jen:

Were right next to each other, and they do look a lot alike to your credit similar and I did not look closely enough and we were making it and or maybe we know, I think we were at the table we were at the table and people were like this is different I said did you get cilantro?

Dave:

you're like, oh no, no, no, no no, no, oh, no, no, no, no I said I think you did, I think you did. So, yeah, make sure you get the right kind of parsley. Just that part.

Jen:

So flat leaf or curly or whatever, it doesn't matter.

Dave:

We basically puree it almost in the food processor.

Jen:

Yeah.

Dave:

And then saute that off with butter. Of course it's Thanksgiving.

Jen:

All processor, yeah, and then saute that off with butter butter of course, um, it's thanksgiving. All rules are out the window, absolutely, um, and then we, you know, uh, you combine that yeah, with, like seasonings, you know, salt pepper poultry poultry seasoning or sage right, those type of things, and then you add chicken stock right, or if you have turkey stock, yep, and it just really just holds a lot of liquid.

Jen:

Yeah, um, and then you, sometimes we would use like a baguette, crumb, crumb, baguette yeah, or you can throw a little rice if you've got some pre-cooked rice in the fridge, you know, with the liquid ratio, and then, uh, divvy that into buttered pans, um, just bake it, you know and usually while you're cooking it, I would stir it right once or twice just just to make sure that that liquid kit has dispersed right out, yeah, so um, and you know it's got a fine consistency, you know it's not clumpy, it's real just moist and it's not mushy like you've done something wrong. If it's right, right If it's super dance.

Dave:

You've done something wrong, yeah, so there you go, there's dressing. Now, the other thing that I didn't grow up with, either, was fresh cranberries.

Jen:

Oh, okay.

Dave:

And you guys, when we started dating or were first married, your family always made fresh cranberry sauce, and I was shocked at how easy it is. Yeah, it is, it is. I mean, the hardest part to me was just washing the cranberries. Yeah, I mean you see these bags of cranberries in grocery store. Okay, wow, that takes a lot of work. It really doesn't no you wash them, make sure you know just like pick through them yep throw them in a pan with some sugar and you can do all kinds of things you can put a cinnamon stick or you can add some orange juice.

Jen:

There's a lot of good recipes out there, but that doesn't take long.

Dave:

You just let it cook for a while and then cool it off.

Jen:

And it just congeals a little bit because of the sugar content, and then it's kind of like a. It's not a jelly but you know it just.

Dave:

It's not just this liquid no, uh, and, and it's I really like that, um, yeah, so yeah, those are the, of course there's, you know, all kinds of canned cran, cran puba, canned cranberries, right we're not a big fan of the things that you would find in an actual aluminum can no? But there's a lot of good jarred ones that are really good, that are um.

Jen:

There's one particular retailer that sells one that we really like and that has been a time saver for us. I mean, we've bought it through the years just to have around this season for maybe turkey sandwiches. But we've kind of and and we we need to get back to our fresh cranberry thing. But um, it's easy to just pop up in that jar and put it on, especially when you're doing two or three meals in the course of a week and a half or two weeks.

Dave:

Yeah, four groups and this and that, yeah, so all right. So beyond those two, um, some of your other traditional sides, you've got the potato side.

Jen:

Yep. So the potato thing. This is just my opinion. Take it for whatever it's worth. I kind of feel, like you know, in the South here we tend to do more sweet potatoes and I think that's just kind of a regional thing as far as what grew here, you know. And then maybe in the more northern states in America they gravitate possibly more towards Irish potatoes and doing things like mashed potatoes and maybe a gratin or whatever. But a lot of people have on their table a sweet potato casserole and it can have either like marshmallows on top or some kind of a crumb topping with maybe pecans and sugar and that kind of thing.

Dave:

Yeah, so there was this restaurant we would go to sometimes and they had on one of their sides was a sweet potato casserole or gratin, and what I liked about it it was in a very thin dish, so it was. The topping to sweet potato ratio was really, really good, um, but we've done that.

Jen:

uh, where it's, you know, it's pureed sweet potatoes you've baked it's very easy it's really easy bake those in the oven and scoop it out, you know, and maybe, maybe run it through the food processor. Just to get the consistency a little better, add some spices.

Dave:

Yeah, the only thing is, it becomes for me a lot like a sweet potato pie. Ah, so that you know when you're planning your menu is one of those things. Well then, maybe I won't have a sweet potato, but it's all. And sweet potato and pumpkin can be so similar too.

Jen:

They can, especially in a pie.

Dave:

Right, yeah, but it's all. And sweet potato and pumpkin can be so similar too. They can, especially in a pie, right, yeah? So the other thing that you guys did was just your mom called candied sweet potatoes and it was quarter. They were really kind of fingers the way she cut them. Yes, about two inches long, about an inch diameter, and of course they would be peeled. You'd peel sweet potatoes, cut them like that, put them in a pan on the stove with some sugar and water.

Jen:

And spices.

Dave:

And spices, and let them kind of just cook or steam or almost boil a little bit.

Jen:

Yeah, probably like a simmer, Because they weren't fully immersed. No, just not a lot of water, and the trick was to not stir them very much, like you wanted to start at the beginning to get all the sugar and stuff right once it comes to heat but if you start too much they'll break apart to mush so when they come out they still have their form, but they're very tender and flavorful.

Dave:

I really like those.

Jen:

A very different way to yeah the sweet potatoes yeah, not, not a real easy way to do it, but very good if you can manage it.

Dave:

And then you get the potato potatoes. So for us mainly that has been mashed potatoes.

Jen:

And your family always did mashed potatoes Always did mashed potatoes, yeah, and, like my grandmother, who grew up in Indiana, always had mashed potatoes on the table. That's why I think it's maybe a little bit of a north-south thing, although who doesn't like mashed potatoes, of course?

Dave:

But you know who doesn't really like sweet potatoes either. But we've actually stopped doing mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, just to make it a little bit easier on ourselves.

Jen:

It's just too much to try to do both for us.

Dave:

Yeah, and our kids aren't real happy with us.

Jen:

Well, we decided we were going to push the mashed potatoes to.

Dave:

Christmas, christmas, and so that's one of the things we do. We, you know, I know, sometimes, growing up, we would still have turkey on Christmas. And you know, sometimes you can't get enough turkey, but sometimes it's nice to do something different. And so we pushed mashed potatoes to Christmas, along with maybe a different type of main course.

Jen:

Right, like a roast or beef wellington or something, yeah, or something different like that.

Dave:

Yeah, but stuffing is a good carrier of gravy.

Jen:

yes, so you still have a gravy carrier you still got a kind of a starchy thing, right, yeah yeah, so um, and then, of course, green vegetables.

Dave:

You've got, you know, the traditional green bean castron. Don't really know how that started, but you know it's gooey it's probably the cream of mushroom soup manufacturer started that recipe or something yeah, it's still good?

Jen:

no, it is.

Dave:

But we've done it even from scratch, where we've made a cream sauce and we've made sauteed mushrooms, fresh mushrooms. We did not fry our own onion. No, we didn't get that far.

Jen:

There's actually some really good crispy fried onions out there, like we found it.

Dave:

Yeah, some places. Yeah, but just any really green vegetable we've done well. Actually, our kids really like the brussel sprouts, yep, so I'll do them in a pan. I've done them a couple different ways. I'll usually throw some pecans in right at the end and I think maybe we've done shallot with them I've done shallots in there, you know, and it really is just it's the fresh brussel sprouts, cut in half in a pan, sauteed, put the lid on it, let it steam, a little bit salt and pepper, and then shallots, garlic, you know, nuts.

Jen:

Nuts.

Dave:

I've used a little balsamic vinegar in there, sometimes A little sweetness after a while. A little sweetness in it. They've enjoyed that.

Jen:

Then just just you could do just regular green beans, right broccoli or you could have, you know, like english peas or something which is really easy. You can buy those canned or frozen.

Dave:

Yeah, and we had that's what I had growing up the peas and um I think, I don't know. I guess we had green bean casserole, but yeah, english peas were a lot of things so yeah.

Jen:

And then a thing that we do I don't know if it's regional, I guess, but I grew up eating this a lot for Thanksgiving is the ambrosia, which is a salad that has orange you know the orange slices, yeah, and coconut, some kind of nut. Some people will put like a maraschino cherry in it.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jen:

That's not my preference. My mom never did. It was basically just fresh oranges. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of labor intensive it is, although you could buy some canned little mandarin orange sections Right, and then the coconut and the nuts, the shredded coconut and the nuts.

Dave:

Yeah, it's really good yeah.

Jen:

Or something like what are those things we've got in the past couple years? The pickled peaches.

Dave:

Pickled peaches and pickled beets.

Jen:

Yeah, I know your parents would usually have a little tray.

Dave:

Yeah, my mom always With pickles and olives and things. Yeah, little finger things yeah, and it's kind of a precursor yeah yeah, and then rolls you gotta have a bread of some sort. Yeah, I'm gonna tell another story. My brother um for many years he would just get a loaf of wonder bread yeah, like just kind of some white bread and turkey and mayo, and that's what's his thanksgiving.

Jen:

Yeah, but he's grown, he's very culinary, so yeah, but uh, I give him a hard time about that yeah, I remember us having thanksgiving at our house one year and we we had to buy some white bread for Michael.

Dave:

But yeah. So you know, it's hard to say what, because I always feel like, you know, we're always running out of room, right? So that's one of the reasons why we push mashed potatoes. It's like, well, we've got this other starch, you know. So it's dressing, sweet potatoes and a green vegetable or two, and turkey, and that's a ton. I think it's plenty, it's plenty. And turkey, and that's that's. That's a ton. I think it's plenty, it's plenty. Yeah. But sometimes you feel like, well, you've got here's mashed potatoes, here's this thing, and then you're like 12 different things. You're like, oh, my goodness, I feel like I need to taste it all.

Jen:

Right, but and you end up've got the basics. You just make it easier on yourself, you know, just don't try to do 15 things.

Dave:

Yes.

Jen:

But yeah, I mean, I think rolls are good and they're pretty traditional.

Dave:

Yeah, your grandmother used to make homemade wheat rolls. Those were great.

Jen:

They were good. The trick is, I would say, if you've got a lot of kids around, don't let them tank up on just rolls, make them dry, turkey and dressing and cranberries and whatever.

Dave:

First, yeah, and so there's some great frozen rolls. Rolls, yeah, but I still want to do those homemade ones.

Jen:

We need to try that sometime.

Dave:

Those are so good so, but anyway. So yeah, lots of sides, lots of side options, you know, and then you gotta have gravy oh yeah, gravy's a food group at our house. You know, the gravy is as important, I think, to our children as the dressing.

Jen:

I totally agree.

Dave:

Maybe second to the turkey.

Jen:

And I think that's one reason why they were always big on the mashed potatoes. It's because, even though you can put gravy on dressing, they really associated it with putting it on mashed potatoes.

Dave:

It was really just a carrier for the gravy. Yeah, so gravy I talked about a little bit last episode. But I take the neck and things from the turkey, the giblets. I use just not a huge saucepan, but just a saucepan, and then I put some water in there, a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper, and just let it cook, simmer, yeah, uh, until they're cooked, and then that's the base. We, you know, of course, do a um, somewhat of a cream sauce type process you know, with a roux a roux uh use or you can use the pan drippings, which is the fat, which I do.

Jen:

Yeah, yeah.

Dave:

And so usually I'll go ahead and make with the stock and the roux that portion of the gravy without seasoning it too much because, the pan drippings will carry a lot of seasoning.

Jen:

Yeah, they're usually pretty salty.

Dave:

And then I'll add the pan drippings for the kind of the coup de gras on that end, and that's really about all it takes.

Jen:

Maybe a little cream or half and half or something, yeah, but it's.

Dave:

It's definitely a brown gravy, definitely brown gravy. Yeah, and that just you know. I don't know that you could have too much gravy.

Jen:

No, especially homemade gravy. And I mean, you know there's some powdered mixes and things out there, but I'm gonna tell you, nothing compares to a homemade gravy.

Dave:

And it's really not that hard.

Jen:

No, no, it really isn't. It's a skill. If you can take the time and practice, maybe a little bit ahead of Thanksgiving, you will never regret learning how to make gravy from scratch.

Dave:

Make a white sauce. Learn how to make a white sauce Exactly. Once you make a white sauce, just take your milk out and put it in your turkey stock and you've got gravy. Yeah, yeah, and it's smooth and it's not a nice body to it. And then you add the fat in the seasoning for the drippings and it gets that much better. Yeah, so all right. Well, that's it for the sides and I guess, uh, thanksgiving. Of course we haven't talked about pies well, that might be all right.

Dave:

Well for this week with sweet Tea and Tacos.

Jen:

I'm Dave, and I'm Jen and have a happy Thanksgiving.