By Greg B. While the turkey may be the centerpiece of your holiday meal, the way side dishes work to compliment and contrast the flavor of the turkey is also key to a successful feast.  Variety of foods, colors and tastes will really go a long way to rounding out the meal.  Besides, what would a Thanksgiving Day feast be without mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potato, squash, green beans, and more?

Lets start with some of the basics.  At my family’s Thanksgiving, we always have plenty of mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and stuffing.  Mashed potatoes always go great with turkey and gravy, but in order to make them, you should think about the nature of the spud.

Potatoes are starches, but like most things, each species of tuber varies to some degree in the style and quantity of starches they have available in them.  Even within potatoes, there are differences and these can play a vital role in making great vs good mashed potatoes (it’s very hard to make them bad, so don’t worry if you’re new to cooking!).  Russet (or even Yukon gold) potatoes are generally large in size, and have a higher starch content than, say red or white round potatoes which are waxy (they have their own purpose, salads and such, since they hold shape really well after you cook them).  For your ingredients:

• 1-2 lbs Potatoes
• 3 tbsp butter (salted, I like)
• 5 tbsp heavy cream
• Salt (for the boil and to taste)
• black pepper

If you wash & peel the potatoes, place them in a pot of water, bring it to a boil.  you can slice the potatoes in half if they’re kind of big, or if you’re in a real rush, slice them into smaller pieces.  I just heard on the Splendid Table mention that if you cut them into too small pieces, they can absorb a lot of water, which you don’t want here, so keep that in mind.  Boil them about 20 minutes, or until you can stick a fork in them easily.  Once done, remove from heat, pour out water through a strainer, then bring the potatoes back to the pot and mash them up a bit with a potato masher.  Add the butter, heavy cream, salt and pepper to taste, and mash until you get them the consistency you like (I like mine a little on the chunky side, so I usually set aside a spud or two, mash up the ingredients fairly well with the other potatoes, then add the remaining potatoes and mash briefly, to give it a little extra texture.).  Serve warm, and you’re done!  You can feel free to add cheeses and other herbs if you like, Parmesan goes nicely here, so goes roasted garlic or even garlic powder.  Its’ up to you!  This will make enough potatoes for about 4-5 people, so plan accordingly.

For Stuffing, I’ll be totally honest.  I love Stove Top Stuffing, and I’m ok admitting it.  It’s easy, it’s fast, it tastes delicious.  And for me, there’s almost an asymptote between really great homemade stuffing, and Stove Top Stuffing.  It takes a little bit more work to make stuffing from scratch, but if you want to put in the effort, it will taste just as good (and you can brag about it a little).  For ingredients, you will need:

• 1 loaf of white bread (I like sour dough)
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 3 carrots, diced
• 2 sticks of celery, also diced (see a theme?)
• salt & pepper, to taste
• vegetable stock
• thyme
• butter
• turkey sausage (optional, but highly recommended!  also, get the loose kind, sans sausage casing)

Ok, so here’s the deal.  You should slice the bread into small cubes and leave it out overnight.  When you’re ready to make the stuffing, I like to toast the bread a bit, depending on how ’stale’ it gets overnight, take a pot and add the diced veggies with the butter and brown them slightly.  Add the bread and enough veggie stock to make the mixture moist, but not soupy.  Mix thoroughly, and voila!  It’s basically as easy as Stove Top Stuffing, just requires a little bit of planning.  The nice thing about this is that you can add other vegetables and spices too, like green peas.  If you are going to use sausage, brown that slightly in a pan, then add the vegetables to that and let it brown together.  Mix together with the bread, add small amount of vegetable stock, then place it in a baking pan and put it in the oven at 350F until the top begins to brown.  At this point, it is ready to serve as a side dish, or to actually stuff into your turkey if you want it (remember, stuff after the turkey is done!).  You can also add sliced apple, prior to the baking time when you saute the veggies.  This adds a nice aromatic and sweet element to the stuffing, so depending on how you made your bird, this may be right up your alley!

If you want to make this a southern-style dish, with cornbread, you can basically use the same ingredients, but bake some cornbread beforehand.  Simmer the diced veggies with the turkey giblets, season, then break up the cornbread and mix it into the veggie pan (it is advisable to make this with sausage, since it is southern-style and that means delicious fatty foods!), then place it in a pan and bake at 350F for 30-45 minutes.

Next we come to Green Bean Casserole.  This is a favorite of mine, and has been for many years.  Many Thanksgiving dinners serve corn off the cob as a side, so I think having the green beans adds a nice balance of nutrition AND color.  It is also very simple.  For ingredients, you will need;

• 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
• 5 cups of green beans, cooked or canned (drained, if from the can)
• salt
• pepper
• 1 1/2 cup french Fried onions

If your soup is condensed, re-constitute it in a pot as the directions indicate.  If not, heat in the pot and stir in the green beans and salt/pepper to taste.  Pour into a baking sheet, sprinkle 1/2 the french fried onions on top, and bake for about 30 minutes at 350F.  Remove, add the remaining french fried onions, then replace back in the oven until everything looks golden deliciously cooked brown.  Easy and delicious!

Finally, we come to the Mashed Sweet Potatoes. These are a great side dish that I wish was more common throughout the year (though fortunately, sweet potato fries are growing more and more common around town).  This is always an amazing food and really, one that I don’t cook nearly enough and which should NOT only be used for holidays!  For ingredients, you will need:

• either 5 lbs of sweet potatoes (or the equivalent of canned weight)
• maple syrup (dark grade B works best, I feel, about 2 tbsp worth)
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar (light)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 stuck of butter
• 2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tspn cinnamon

Skin, chop and boil the sweet potatoes until very soft, or, alternatively, open the cans of sweet potatoes!  Drain if boiling, or if opening cans, directly add them to a food processor, and ‘process’ until it becomes pasty.  Beat the eggs in a bowl, then add to the food processor, along with all the ingredients EXCEPT the Pecans, Butter and Brown sugar.  When it is pureed, lightly grease a baking dish and spoon this mixture into it.  In a separate bowl, combine the butter (at room temp), pecans and sugar, then spread this evenly along the top of the sweet potatoes. Place this in the oven at 350F about 45 minutes (maybe longer, depending on how thick your backing dish is.  You want the sugar to be caramelizing on top), remove and let rest a few minutes before serving.

And there you have it!  These are some of the basic side dishes for your typical American Thanksgiving Dinner (at least for my family).  I wish you luck in cooking them, and if you have a special family recipe, why not post it below?  Also, you may notice I left out two very important Thanksgiving Dinner elements, which will be discussed in one more post, prior to Turkey Day:  Gravy & Cranberry relish.  Mmm Mmm!