Monthly Archives: November 2012

WATERGATE SALAD (a/k/a GREEN STUFF)

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Doesn’t this look like the ideal Thanksgiving?  The butler carves the perfectly browned, crisp-skinned turkey, while the children, dressed in their Sunday finest, watch delightedly.  The adults gather in another room, to avoid having to interact with the host’s offspring, pets, and hired help.  Oh, and drink.  A lot.  This, of course, is a purely fictional Thanksgiving — a vintage press photo that I found on ebay.  The children, if in fact they are human children, are models.

Nope, for most of us, Thanksgiving is all about putting the fun in dysfunctional.  Like the family in this vintage Polaroid that I also found on ebay.

You can tell that this is a special day because everyone has their own bottle of sodie pop.  Yes, I say screw the Waterford.  And what’s that on the corner of the table — last year’s fruitcake?  Woo hoo!

Notice how Mom has put the plastic covering on the lamp shades, to protect them from — what?  Dust?  Aliens?

More likely it is to protect them in the event a food fight breaks out, because you never know what might happen when Cousin Earl shows up wearing Aunt Thelma’s shirt.

I’m a little confused by the turkey.  Was it a vampire turkey and they were trying to drive a stake through its heart?  What a dramatic presentation!

One thing about Thanksgiving with my family — contrary to what the food magazines would have me believe, this is NOT the time to try out new recipes.  My family looks forward to our traditional Thanksgiving dishes — roast turkey, mashed potatoes, whipped sweet potatoes, Pepperidge Farm stuffing, green beans, and cranberry relish.  The achiote-rubbed turkey, the green beans with pancetta and shallots, the sesame and green onion smashed potatoes, and the jalapeno cranberry salsa will have to wait for another day.  I am trying out a new salad this year, but I have an old standby too, just in case.

Watergate Salad, also known as Green Stuff, is another family favorite that will also be on our Thanksgiving table.  Pistachio pudding mix, marshmallows, whipped topping, pecans, and crushed pineapple combine to create what my neighbor calls “paradise.”  It is the stuff of 1970s Junior League cookbooks, right up there with Tuna Noodle Casserole.  Don’t ask me why it’s called a salad, it just is.  If you’ve grown weary of the whole “farm to table” thing, and are yearning for a little “factory to table” cuisine this holiday season, whip up a batch of this pale green deliciousness.

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WATERGATE SALAD (a/k/a GREEN STUFF)
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Recipe type: Salad, Dessert
 
Ingredients
  • 4-serving size package instant pistachio pudding mix
  • 20-ounce can crushed pineapple (do not drain)
  • 1 cup chopped pecans
  • 1 cup miniature marshmallows
  • 9-ounce carton frozen whipped topping, thawed
Instructions
  1. Place pistachio pudding mix and pineapple, with its liquid, in a large bowl. Stir in pecans and marshmallows. Fold in whipped topping. Transfer to a 9 x 13 inch dish and refrigerate for 24 hours. Serve cold.

 I give thanks for Green Stuff

MARTHA STEWART TURKEY CUPCAKES — IMPROVED

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Once every decade or so, I like to make Turkey Cupcakes for Thanksgiving.  The original idea came from Martha Stewart:

Martha Stewart’s Turkey Cupcakes

 Adorable, right?  But what Martha doesn’t tell you, is that there is no way in hell you can make these cupcakes without a team of food stylists, and even then I’m not so sure.  The gummy fish are too heavy to stand up as tail feathers, and just about as soon as you stick them in they start falling out, taking half the cupcake with them.  I found another blogger who experienced similar frustration.  She wrote:  “What they don’t tell you is that you can’t just “stick” a fish into a marshmallow and expect it to stick. I used my kitchen scissors and made a little snip and then inserted the gummy fish. Well, then they started falling out after a few minutes, so I stuck a toothpick up and through it to hold it in place and that worked much better. You need to do the same thing running a toothpick up and through the fish for the feathers or else they’ll fall out, too, and completely ruin one side of your cupcake breaking apart your cupcake.”

So I came up with an IMPROVED Turkey Cupcake — one that you can make at home WITHOUT a team of food stylists AND transport without the whole thing falling apart.  Using a pastry brush, brush melted chocolate onto the top half of pretzel sticks, roll them in jimmies, and VOILA — tailfeathers!  I set them on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper and let the chocolate harden in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.  The hardest part about making the tailfeathers is keeping the kids from eating them.

I also used candy corn for the nose instead of gummy fish.  Use any cupcake recipe you want.  You can use any frosting you like too, although I think chocolate is the turkiest.  This morning I’m dropping off a rafter of turkeys for my son’s class.  I didn’t know that a group of turkeys was called a rafter — learn something new every day!  I wish I could be there to see the kids’ faces — but if I were, my son would be staring at the floor pretending he didn’t know me and wishing that the earth would open up and swallow me whole.  And then he’d grab a cupcake. . . .

 A rafter of turkeys

What’s the best way to stuff a turkey?
Serve him lots of pizza and ice cream!