A CDC Thanksgiving
My husband and I have decided we will be following CDC guidelines for our Thanksgiving this year. I’m hoping this will be the only year we have to do this, but we can make the sacrifice. Another year will come.
I have gotten creative. I hope you like some of my ideas. It might be too late to use them this Thanksgiving, but the December holidays are right around the corner, and New Year’s festivities are right after that.
I saw a short list of celebration guidelines early last week that gave 4 bullet points to follow. If you go to the CDC site right now you get ALL KINDS of detailed advice. It’s clear people are looking for guidance and the CDC is trying to get as creative as possible. I’m just going to comment on the short list...
Creamed Onions with Raisins
This is one of my husband’s favorite holiday recipes. His first wife had her family recipe. I did some digging online to find heritage recipes (from the 1950s) that seemed close and came up with this.
Ingredients:
2 14 oz bags of small pearl onions (You can find these most often in the freezer section with the vegetables. It saves a LOT of time buying them frozen and letting them thaw before you make this dish. If you buy small onions with the skins on you have to add a whole procedure to boil them and get the skins off.)
3 cups of water (Or just enough to cover the onions.)
1 tsp grated sea salt
6 Tbl butter
6 Tbl of flour (You can use gravy flour if you have it.)
1-1/4 cups water from boiled onions
2-1/4 cups cream
1/4 cup seedless raisins
1/4 cup dry sherry
dash paprika
Instructions:
Cover the onions with hot water and add the salt. Boil until cooked; approximately 15 minutes. Drain, reserving one and one-quarter cups of the water from the onion pot. Set the onions aside while you make the sauce.
Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepot over medium heat. Mix in the flour and stir until bubbly. Add the onion water and cream. Bring to a boil and simmer for five minutes, stirring pretty much constantly. You want the sauce to begin to thicken but you don’t want it sticking to the bottom of the pan. Then add the onions and cook five minutes more while the sauce continues to thicken. Keep stirring!
Put the sherry and the raisins in a microwavable bowl. Heat on high in the microwave for 30 seconds. Let stand for five minutes. Add this to the sauce with the drained onions. Heat but do not boil. Serve with a dusting of paprika.
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola
