Memorable Thanksgiving Side Dishes

Side dishes made and served by Carol Boutard at Ayers Creek Farm in Gaston, Oregon

Thanksgiving is all about vegetarian side dishes for us. It's not uncommon in other parts of the world to create meals composed of appetizers and side dishes and even if you aren't a vegetarian, check out this excellent list of ideas for side dishes I wrote last Thanksgiving.


We're lucky to have two hungry hounds who love vegetables as much as we do.

Finn my Cooking Assistant, dog picker, checking out  produce from the Hillsdale farmers' market

If a side dish only menu isn't your cup of tea, you aren't a turkey fan, and want a whole menu of  recipes, check out Nancy Ging's Northwest locavore holiday menus.    Nancy offers three selections, two animal main dishes and one vegetarian.

Also, this week from 101 Cookbooks, Heidi Swanson listed her favorite Thanksgiving recipe ideas.  As I perused her list, I spotted a great green bean recipe.  It's simple and though green beans aren't in season now, I wanted some as soon as I saw it.  I have to admit, I'm a vegaholic and I think sometimes people try too hard with recipes that are too fussy or too rich, which detracts from wonderful vegetable flavors.  I saw a few recipes like this one for creamed kale like this one from Guy Fieri, the spiky white-haired guy from the Food Network.  This recipe came from an episode called Steak Night with Dad, which included bacon-wrapped beef and portobello fries.

Give Guy the Paula Dean super-rich food award for this one.  Guy--seriously, I'm not surprised you got hammered by critics recently.  Go home and learn how to cook a few vegetables!  And maybe loose a few pounds while you're at it!!

If you're into soup, I found this very cool soup from Tom at Tall Clover Farm.  I liked it because it uses coconut soup instead of same old boring cream and he adds a Thai curry for a unique flavor.  I can't wait to try this one.   You may decide to give your whole meal a Thai twist, this year.

If you're still into scoping out ideas, check out some of your favorite cookbooks.  Warning--here's a bit of shameless promotion coming because I use my own cookbooks for inspiration all the time.

Check out this cool review of my recent book in the Bellingham Herald.

I do want to add--why not make this Thanksgiving a GMO-free meal. Check out my article in Marlene's Sound Consumer this month with 5 reasons for a GMO-free Thanksgiving.

And don't forget salads.  They're often the featured dish at our house.

Why not go beyond your usual green salad.   I got some fennel at the market this past weekend and plan to make this fennel-orange salad with avocado.  You can add gorgonzola or walnuts.  Though it tastes good either way, I like a dairy-free salad and I'm using walnuts since they're in season now.  Thanks to Grouse Mountain Farm, I've stocked walnuts in our pantry for the winter.


Tom voted for potato salad, so I got three different types and colors of potatoes to make this cool potato salad. 

Here's the recipe:

Perfect Potato Salad

(Serves 4 to 6)

2 pounds potatoes (waxy yellow, red, or purple)

1/4 to 1/2 cup garlic aioli spread or mayonnaise 

2 tablespoons white miso

1/4 teaspoon celery seed

2 tabelespoons raspberry vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

3 cloves garlic, pressed

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 cup chopped pickles

1 1/2 cups pepper (green, yellow, or red)

1/4 cup sliced green onions (optional)

2 stalks celery, diced

Smoked paprika

Handful of parsley (curly or flat)

1. Wash and cut potatoes into bite size pieces.  Place in a saucepan with a little water and steam on medium until tender, about 5 minutes.  Do not overcook.  Drain, rise with cold water and set aside.

2. In a small bowl blend aioli spread, miso, celery seed, raspberry vinegar, mustard, garlic and cayenne.  Whisk until well blended. Stir in pickles. 

3. Place potatoes, pepper, green onion and celery in a salad bowl.  Pour dressing and pickles over vegetables and gently mix until dressing coats all the potatoes.  Sprinkle with smoked paprika and garnish with a handful of fresh parsley.

Stuffed pumpkin could be another side dish or your might label it a main dish.  This vegan version of stuffed pumpkin looks pretty cool to me.


For dessert a berry crisp.  I'm dipping into my freezer for Chester blackberries from Ayers Creek Farm.  Here's the recipe I use year-round.  I've tried other recipes but always go back to this one that I've been making for over 30 years.

Whatever you do, save a few leftovers for your canine friends:)  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies

It's cookie season, and we all wanted something old-fashioned, something that said "pure comfort."  So I decided to shuffle through some of the cookbooks taking up space on my shelves.  I focused on some of the oldest books that get little use.   Were they even worth keeping around anymore?

I had all my old books spread around me.  I picked this book up first.  It was my mom's favorite cookbook.  I remember the day she got this book when I was very young.  "This is the book for me," she'd declared.  I gazed at it sadly when realized our family was doomed to a lifetime of boring dinners.

I love those people who wax on about what great cooks their parents were and how their lives have always revolved around food, but the truth is my mother hated cooking. She'd rather spend her time drawing or sewing.  In fact when I gave my first book to an editor, she said, "I sense a conflict between you and your mom."  We were different, that's all.  It used to be hard to accept that cooking was not one of mom's favorite activities.  

 Mom made no secret about her feelings and spent as little time in the kitchen as possible.  Meals were mostly boring.  I hate the little pieces of meat leather, served in the same boring way.   By the time I got to high school, mom was an outspoken proponent of Dr. Stillman's low-carb diet, and she refused to serve anything more than a slab of meat and a green salad for dinner.  Spaghetti was too fattening, and rice, potatoes and homey casseroles were also dropped from her recipe index.   

It was with reluctance that I opened this book.  I only keep it because it was Mom's favorite.

But I've got to admit, Peg Bracken is funny.  Sometimes laugh out loud funny.  I love the disclamer on the book flap:  "A hint for cooks who love to cook: this book isn't supposed to be for you, but you ought to have a copy.  The recipes are excellent, and Peg Bracken is very funny.  I'll admit she's funny, but the recipes, well,  whoever the editor was, she's entitled to her opinon of the recipes.

The term  Foodie hadn't been invented in the 1960s.  It was a time of big change, and American women were encourage to work and were pushed into accepting all manner of convenience foods. Sandara Lee's Semi-Homemade tips can't really hold a candle to the all the tips women passed around to cut time in the kitchen in the1960s.  Plus this book game my mom a reason to get out of the kitchen.  It was finally okay for women to admit cooking was not their primary interest in life.

Howeer, most of the recipes in the I Hate to Cookbook, involve meat or dairy and most of them include cans of this or that or packaged mixes, which definitely saves time.  When I was learning to cook, I discovered the limitations of packaged soup stock, boullion cubes, cans of various products.   The end result always tastes a little off, and it's definitely not as healthy as when you use natural products.  I'm not against canned tomatoes, or even canned olives, pickles and some vegetables, but many of these processed foods are too sodium laden and contain questionable ingredients. 

I guess the kitchen is where Mom and I parted ways in terms of our interests.  I learned most of my cooking skills from early cooking shows on TV and talking with friends who liked to cook.  I also picked up tips in many of the vegetarian cookbooks, like Laurel's Kitchen.   Early on, I choose a vegetarian path (perhaps I'd just had it with low carb this and that dreary hunk of meat on the plate).  Plus the idea of eating animals has never appealed to me.

I feel lucky to have found one good recipe in this book.   

Feel free to source as much as you can from local farms.   Your cookies will have lots more flavor with fresh foods, including local flour.   Often we don't realize just how stale grocery store food until you try local options and compare the flavors.

Every year we get a big box of walnuts from Grouse Mountain Farm to carry us through to spring. It's hard to resist baking with these  nuts.

This machine, made by a farmer, winnows the wheat from the field, separating it from the shaft before grinding it.

My Cooking Assistant wasn't very happy to wake up from his nap to pose with a stupid book.

A note before you begin:

This is an old-fashioned recipe that calls for eggs and butter, but if you want to try to veganize this recipe, use about 1/4 cup mashed banana or flax seed egg replacer for the egg, and use vegan replacements for butter.  Using oil changes the texture of these cookies.  Also, if you're sharing with your pooch, omit the mini chips and don't use raisins.

We get all our eggs from River Farm near Ellensburg.  River Farm chickens forage in the forest and the yolks are the deepest yellow I've ever seen.   The only thing you can't do with these eggs is hard boil them until they are a few weeks old.  They are simply too fresh!  We use them sparingly.

Here's the recipe:

Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies

(Makes 2 1/2 to 3 dozen cookies)

1/2 cup butter, (Golden Glenn Creamery), oil or Earth Balance Baking Sticks

1/2 to 3/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg, beaten (from River Farm) or  use a flax seed egg-replacer 

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (from Nash's Organic Produce)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup thick, old fashioned oats

1 cup lightly toasted, chopped walnuts (from Grouse Mountain Farm)

1/2 cup chopped dried fruit (nectarines from Rama Farm) or chocolate chips (optional)

1. Cream together butter or oil and brown sugar.  Stir in vanilla and the beaten egg.   In another bowl combine all dry ingredients except walnuts and dried fruit.   When mixture is blended, stir in nuts and fruit.

2. Refrigerate for 1 hour, or place in the freezer for 1/2 hour.  

3. Preheat oven to 350 F.  Roll dough into small walnut-sized balls.  Press down with a glass dipped in cinnamon sugar.  Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove to a cooling rack.

I'm sharing this recipe at Whole Foods Wednesdays and Miz Helen's Full Plate Thursdays.

Now this is the way I want to wake up!  

Pumpkin-Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

The breakfast cookie has arrived.   Well, actually it's been here, but I've seen so many recipes for them lately it's hard to resist making one myself.

This is not a breakfast cookie, but check out how an enterprising coffee shop is capitalizing on the tight political race this year--it's so American.  I'm not sure what this says about the election except that Romney supporters are fueling up on sugar, and you know what too much sugar can do to your brain.

Any cookie worth eating in the morning begins its life in the field not a factory.  And since this recipe is about pumpkin cookies, all you have to do it go to a natural foods store or farmers' market and get a sugar pie pumpkin.  Make sure your purchase comes from small sustainable farms like Blue Heron Farm, near Rockport, Washington. (These are destined for Skagit Valley Co-op in Mount Vernon.)

Just about any winter squash will do (except spaghetti squash and decorative squash), so take your pick.

We usually bake winter squash whole.  Poke a fork in it, set the oven to 350F., and put it on a baking sheet. Stick it in the oven, close the door and wait for about 45 minutes.  Check to see if it's done by sticking a fork in and if it pulls out easily, it's done.  Let it cool a bit before letting your Cooking Assistant examine it.

This pumpkin was supposed to go for dog biscuits, which are a big hit, especially when I add a bit of molasses.  It's the best dog biscuit recipe ever, so it was hard to part with some of the pumpkin for an experimental recipe.  I'd picked the smallest pumpkin at the market for $4.00.  The pumpkin inside was about 2 to 3 cups worth, once I'd pureed it.   Exactly enough for breakfast cookies and dog biscuits.

After baking the pumpkin, I checked out recipes.  First I found these pumpkin-oatmeal cookies.  And they initially looked good--oats and oat flour, pumpkin puree--very healthy ingredients.  Then I found these breakfast cookies done two ways.  Genius--or so I thought.  But on closer examination I didn't have some of the ingredients (almond meal, coconut flour, oat flour, spelt flakes) and they're kind of expensive to buy.  Also I didn't want to use agave nectar. (It's not really a healthy ingredient.) 

The one thing I didn't notice until the last minute was all the recipes contained no oil at all.   And no oil in a cookie or muffin can seriously make baked goods have a texture like hockey pucks.  

Even my Cooking Assistant agrees; if you're going to make cookies or muffins, don't forget the oil.  Sure they contained nut butter, but in my baking experience, it is not the same.  Who wants a hocky puck cookie?

Also when it came to adding things, I had to use walnuts from Grouse Mountain farm and dried fruit (cherries, apples and nectarines) that I'd dehydrated this past summer.

Here's the recipe:

Pumpkin-Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

(Makes 2 1/2 to 3 dozen)

1 cup pureed pumpkin

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs, beaten (or use flax seed egg replacer for vegan cookies)

1/3 cup butter or oil

3 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I used Nash's Organic flour)

1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup lightly toasted walnuts

1 cup dried chopped fruit 

Preheat oven to 350F.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine pumpkin puree, maple syrup, vanilla, eggs (or egg replacer) and butter or oil in a mixer or blender.  Blend until smooth and creamy.

Combine flour, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg in another bowl.  Mix until well blended.  Then combine pumpkin mixture and flour, adding more flour to make a fairly stiff dough. Blend in walnuts and chopped fruit. 

Drop by spoonful onto prepared baking sheets.  Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove entire parchment paper to cooling rack.

They came out a tiny bit dry, but not as bad as if I'd used no oil at all.  

Somebody can sniff out a good cookie anywhere.   He loves his pirate hat.

Fast Food and Quick Fixes: Apple, Pear and Carrot Salad

Apple, Pear and Carrot Salad 

Apples and Pears--the Ultimate Fast Food Treat

Apples and pears are practically Washington State's trademark, and this year's apple crop is a big one.  The problem is that with such a big harvest, experienced orchard workers are in short supply and farmers are scrambling to find help according to this article in the Seattle Times.  And this NPR story says that the labor shortage couldn't come at a worse time because Washington apples are worth more right now because crops in other states like New York and Michigan suffered from bad weather.   Most seasonal farmworkers aren't documented in this state, and farmers often say it's hard to hire enough American workers willing to work that hard.  Immigration reform is a sticky issue, think what would happen if suddenly all those workers were gone tomorrow.

Apple harvesting isn't easy.  Workers climb tall ladders and carry 40 pound bags of apples for eight hours a day. Some workers can earn $250 a day at $25 an hour.  Maybe Michigan and New York could send us some of their farmworkers.

Love apples, who doesn't?   

I'm fond of new and old varieties, but I have my favorites.

Snow White Apples at Nash's Farm perfect for Halloween

I used some little Seckel pears from Grouse Moutain farm for this salad.  You can't eat just one.  They make the perfect dessert, raw or baked in apple cider.

If you don't have those you can use any kind of pears you happen to have on hand for this quick salad.

Last year we were overwhelmed with so many pears from our friends.

Big or little--you can find a range of sizes at the farmers' market

He's feeling a little devilish with all this apple gazing.  The smells are so much more prominent for dogs. I'm always amazed when someone says: "My dog doesn't eat people food."   Really?  That's all my Cooking Assistant would eat if he got the chance.   

I found these stunning apples at the market last winter, but I didn't catch the name.  Best guess is it's something that includes the word "pink."

Apple Pear and Carrot Salad 

(Serves 2 to 4)

Pick your favorite apple and pears to make this salad.  I favor Fuji apples and Bosc pears.

1 cup grated carrots

1 large sweet-tart apple, diced

1 Bosc pear or 4 Seckel pears, diced 

1/4 cup fresh orange juice

1 teaspoon orange zest

2 tablespoons dried tart cherries

6 ounces lemon yogurt--dairy or soy

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Combine the carrots, apple, and pear with fresh orange juice.  Mix in the tart cherries and yogurt.

Top with walnuts.

Sometimes you just have to dig in.

Quinoa and Red Pepper Fritters

Fall has officially arrived and I'm in the mood to cook a lot more.   I want more comfort foods, and I know somebody who's happy to be on his little rug in the kitchen more often.

 My Cooking Assistant will return in a few weeks.  He's been spending too much time looking for discarded apples and catching up on naps.

He thinks he's king of the sofa.

Quinoa fritters is one of my favorite go-to recipes, especially when I'm craving something with texture.  I've made them before, here, and I adapted the original recipe from The South American Table, one of my favorite inspiring cookbooks. The original recipe listed cheese, but I dropped that and now this recipe changes every time I make it.  The only thing I haven't figured out is how to make these fritters vegan without adding soy.  I don't think I could get the right texture with tapioca flour or potato starch, so if anyone has any ideas about how to get them to hang together that let me know.

Peppers will soon be out of season, so stock up now.  River Farm dehydrates their peppers and seals them with a food sealer.  They sell them at the market through the winter.  I packages lasts a long time.  Sweet peppers can be diced, placed in plastic bags, inside glass jars and frozen.  Glass is less permeable to air and will delay freezer burn for a lot longer. 

Like tomatoes, peppers will turn red if they already have a bit of red on them when you bring them inside.  We lost a lot of peppers to earwigs this summer:(   I had no idea what the little holes in the peppers were, so I took them to the market where Liz from River Farm said they were earwigs, apparently one of the pests that loves peppers.  We saved a few but I'll have to find something to deter the earwigs next year.

Another thing I love about fall is garlic.  I used to get these fantastic garlic braids from Rent's Due Ranch, but they've gone from the market, so I've gathered a number of garlic bulbs, but the price has shot up so much that I'm much more frugal with it these days.  

What's the deal with garlic?  If it's so ridiculously easy to grow, what's with the high price? I know people don't usually talk about that but seriously I got it for $6 a pound in Oregon and here it's $12 to $14 a pound, no one sells it for less than $10 a pound anymore.

We get eggs from River Farm and farmer Jerry said they're quite yellow because the chickens wander all over, picking up grubs and other insects.  Even my assistant is impressed.

Here's the recipe:

Quinoa and Red Pepper Fritters

(Makes 9 or 10 fritters)

1 tablespoon olive or canola oil

1/4 cup minced onion

1 red pepper diced

1 jalapeno, seeded and minced

3 cloves garlic, press

1 1/2 cups quinoa

1 cup toasted breadcrumbs

1/2 cup toasted walnuts

1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives

Freshly ground pepper

2 eggs, beaten

Oil (canola, safflower or olive oil)

Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat.  Add oil, onion and peppers.  Stir and cook until vegetables soften.  Add garlic and cook for a few more minutes.

Combine quinoa, breadcrumbs, walnuts, kalamata olives, and black pepper in a large bowl.  Blend in eggs, adding more quinoa or bread crumbs if mixture doesn't seem thick enough to hold together.

Pour enough oil in a heavy skillet to coat the bottom of the pan.  Heat skillet over medium heat.  Scoop about 1/4 cup quinoa and place in frying pan.  Flatten and cook for a few minutes or until lightly browned.  Flip and cook remaining side.  Serve with salsa.

I generally favor salsa for a topping but black bean chili runs a close second.  I hope you enjoy these fritters, I know someone who gave them four paws up!

Peanut Butter-Pumpkin Dog Biscuits

A Guest Post from Finn the Cooking Assistant (aka the dog picker)

We are late posting this week due to harvesting the last of our summer garden, dehydrating apples and pears, and of course baking. I love the rain and change of weather because it means more baking.  I figured we'd make carrot cookies from the recipe posted last week, but something better came along.

Pumpkins.  For these biscuits you can use just about any kind of winter squash.  You could even use the Jack O'lantern pumpkins, but they aren't usually considered good for eating.

Neither are the decorative ones like these with the raised bumps.  But who doesn't want something cool for this time of year?

Spaghetti squash also probably wouldn't work.  But get one of those, too, because those are just plain good eating.

Most of the other squash will work.  The Lady pokes them with a fork and slides them in the oven for about 45 minutes.  Some people cut the squash in half, but the skin is so tough it's hard to cut into many varieties of winter squash.

Our biscuit inspiration came from Trader Joe's.  They have the best dog biscuits and when the pumpkin biscuits came out, I was turning back flips. Sure we could keep buying those biscuits, but homemade trumps everything if you can get the flavors right.

The Lady surfed the net and found this recipe that called for canned pumpkin.  She modified it, since fresh pumpkin seemed appropriate for the season, and of course we used River Farm eggs and Nash's flour.  And she added more peanut butter, and I think it's obvious why we need more of that.  With homemade you have to kick up the flavor. 

The thing you need to remember is the dough must be thick enough to roll out.  If the dough is too sticky, it needs more flour.  More flour, but not too much because you will need even more when you roll the dough out and too much will make the cookies crumble.

Sugar pie pumpkins are the best for this recipe.

We use eggs from River Farm where the chickens lead a good life, but you can use any eggs, and if you want to make these treats vegan, you can use a half-cup of flax seed egg replacer.

Peanut Butter-Pumpkin Dog Biscuits

(Makes 30 to 60 biscuits, depending on size)

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 eggs

1 cup cooked pumpkin

1/4 cup peanut butter

Preheat oven to 325F.  

Blend flour and cinnamon together.   In a blender combine eggs, pumpkin and peanut butter.  Blend until smooth.  Stir into the flour, adding enough flour for a stiff dough.  Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Flour a cutting board and pat dough out.  Roll dough to 1/4-inch thick.  Cut with any kind of cookie cutters.  Place on a parchment lined sheet.

Bake for 40 minutes.  Turn off oven and allow biscuits to crisp. 

Carrot cookies of a different sort.