Pear Salad with Pistachios, Bacon, + Maple Red Onion Vinaigrette

I get put on salad duty a lot for family dinners.  It might be the homemade dressings, it might be the crunch of some kind of nut, and it might be the fact that I own a bowl big enough to accommodate salad enough for twenty.

It’s probably the bowl.

I try to make it match the season as much as possible.  Strawberries + sunflower seeds in the spring, grilled peach + pecan for summer, anything with apples or pears for the fall and a wedge or a cobb thrown in here and there to mix it up.

 

For this one, I coupled my mom’s love of pistachios with fall pears, and crumbled bacon.  Then, I topped it all off with a red onion, maple vinaigrette… if you haven’t ever made your own salad dressing, this one has the blender do all of the work.

Cranberry.

Pucker up, it’s cranberry time.  I absolutely love cranberry relish with turkey.  Psssst… I also love canned shaped jellied cranberry sauce, make fun if you will.   It is even better on the ultimate leftovers sandwich.  Mmmmm.  Turkey sandwiches are almost better than actual thanksgiving. 

I always thought it was something super complicated to make, but it turns out it isn’t at all.  Everything gets thrown in the food processor and it takes care of everything.  It also keeps for a surprisingly long time in the fridge and the flavors just get better the longer it sits, so make this a day or two in advance.

Oma’s Corn Casserole

Dave and I started dating the night before Thanksgiving.  If we’re being honest here it wasn’t so much as ‘dating’ {how he felt} as hooking up {how I felt}, but I digress.  This isn’t about us, it’s about food.  So, the first time he took me home to meet his family was a month later on Christmas. 

Yeah… no pressure there.

I described it to my friends thusly, Norman Rockwell.

Not kidding.

Oma sets the table with her china, everything looks like something out of a painting, we have a family prayer, everyone makes polite conversation, and the food is just as delicious as you might imagine it would be.

My family is loud and obnoxious and we have things buffet style because it’s too damn hard to do it family style with twenty people, there is usually loud boisterous talk and if we are being honest, probably an f bomb or twelve.  We also have had drag queens at dinner. 

First impressions and all.

Here is the thing, I’ve asked Oma for lots of recipes over the last ten years.  My favorites are all scribbled out on index cards, tucked away, because I think she still believes everyone has a recipe box.  The best is when I was looking for a great mac n cheese recipe and I asked for hers.  She looked at me with her twinkly smile, laughed, and said, “Here is my secret to great macaroni, don’t tell anyone.  I just buy Stouffers.”

It was then that I knew she was my kindred cooking spirit.  Mix things that are more complicated with simple, great dishes.

Corn casserole is one of my favorites.  I love the corner piece the best.  I like it so much that I’ve started making it at my family’s dinner too.  It could not be easier to make either, three minutes tops.

Talking Turkey.

All this week, we’re talking Thanksgiving.  It’s seriously my very favorite time of the year.  Except that one whole almost dying thing.

Over on Facebook a whole mess of you shared your love for the sweet potato… I feel like I’m missing out, so I’m giving them a go again.

I have recipes for you!  We’re going to talk wine and cocktails!  We’re going to talk table setting and my ridiculous love for a pretty place card.  And FAMILY, of course.  The bigger and weirder, the better over here.

What is your favorite part of Thanksgiving?