Honey and Spice Glazed Turkey / Butterball

Here are hotlines and websites for finding information on just about everything you need for Thanksgiving.

• Butterball Turkey Talk-Line: (800) 288-8372, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. live assistance, then automated; butterball.com.
• Crisco Pie Hotline: (877) 367-7438 offers a pie expert to talk to from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the holidays. The line is also available 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. now through Nov. 26 and Dec. 15-23. On Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, access videos with step-by-step visual instructions and guidelines for making pie crusts.
• Domino Sugar: dominosugar.com – look here for baking tips and recipes.
• Fleischmann’s Yeast Baker’s Help Line: (800) 777-4959: offers information for using yeast, storing it, determining if it is still useable. Consumer representatives are on hand 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Recipes, tips at breadworld.com.
• Food and wine pairing: www.foodandwinepairing.org offers tips on what wines to pair with turkey or your side sides.
• Foster Farms Turkey Helpline: (800) 255-7227: answers questions about their products and how to prepare turkey, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Friday. Or visit fosterfarms.com.
• King Arthur Flour Co.’s Bakers Hotline: (802) 649-3717 for information on baking just about anything. Staffed 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday year-round. During the holidays, the hotline is available weekends from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Also, you can e-mail questions to bakers@kingarthurflour.com or join live chats at kingarthurflour.com when the hotline is available.
• Land O’Lakes Holiday Bake Line: (800)  782-9606; hotline available 8 a.m.-7 p.m. through Christmas Eve.
• McCormick: mccormick.com provides  holiday recipes and instructions for craft projects that use spices.
• National Turkey Federation: eatturkey.com advocates for the turkey industry and has a Thanksgiving guide for turkey preparation as well as other holiday dishes.
• Nestlé Toll House Baking Information Line: (800) 637-8537 is available 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.  Monday-Friday. Also, their Web site, verybestbaking.com, offers baking tips and recipes.
• Ocean Spray consumer help line: (800) 662-3263 is available 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, including Thanksgiving Day. Or visit oceanspray.com for a  Thanksgiving planning section including expert advice, tried-and-true recipes, ideas for a beautiful table, crafts and hints for the host.
• Perdue Farms: (800) 473-7383. Find out about roasting, carving and leftovers at www.perdue.com.
• Reynolds Turkey Tips hotline: (800) 745-4000 for recorded turkey defrosting and roasting information; reynoldskitchen.com.
• Shady Brook Farms Turkey Line: (888) 723-4468 offers recorded information about turkeys from buying and prepping to roasting and carving. www.shadybrookfarms.com.
• USDA Meat & Poultry Hotline: (888) 674-6854 offers information on safe food handling and prevention of food-borne illnesses.

John Griffin and About.com contributed to this report.

This is an excellent low-carb substitution for mashed potatoes that even cauliflower-haters enjoy.

Mashed Cauliflower

1 large head cauliflower, cut into florets
6 tablespoons butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces, divided use
2 slices bacon, optional (see note)
1/8 cup whipping cream or sour cream
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Steam the cauliflower until it is tender.

If using the bacon, melt 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan while the cauliflower is steaming. Add the bacon and fry until crisp. Remove to paper towels and dry. Cut into strips.

When the cauliflower is ready, drain well. With paper towels, gently squeeze as much excess water as you can.

Place cauliflower in a mixing bowl with the remaining butter and whipping cream. Let the butter melt somewhat before you start to mix it. Add bacon strips, if using, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix until desired consistency is reached.

Note: You can also use roasted garlic, cheese or other flavors.

Makes 6-8 servings.

From John Griffin

Cabbage is a fall staple that gains brightness from coriander and citrus juice.

Sautéed Cabbage With Bacon

2 tablespoons butter
2 strips bacon
1 small head cabbage, core removed and cut into thin strips
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground ginger
Salt, to taste
Lemon juice or orange juice, to taste

Melt butter in a saucepan. Add bacon and cook until crisp. Remove to paper towels and dry.

Add cabbage to the pan and sauté. Stir in coriander and ginger. Add salt to taste. When the cabbage is soft, stir in the bacon and squeeze a spritz of lemon juice on top before serving.

Makes 6-8 servings.

From John Griffin

“You’re sublime.
You’re a turkey dinner.
You’re the time
Of a derby winner.”

- “You’re the Top,” Cole Porter

I can’t begin to list the myriad things for which I’m grateful this year. So many blessings fall under the categories of family, friends, health and general welfare that I’m constantly humbled by the magnitude of them.

But one item high on the list was the chance to share an early Thanksgiving dinner with my parents, one of my sisters, her husband and my nephew.

That may strike some of my friends as odd. They know that the traditional Thanksgiving dinner is not one of my favorites. All that brown food. The narcoleptic bloat that comes from overeating. I didn’t get it.

Well, maybe my body got it. When I was diagnosed with diabetes several years ago, I noticed that the Thanksgiving dishes I most avoided, such as dressing, were the ones that were the most laden with carbohydrates.

So, this year, I decided to make a more diabetic-friendly Thanksgiving meal, one with plenty of fall flavor but without all the harm.

It’s doubly important in my family since my father also lives with diabetes, and my nephew is a carb-addict who limits his meals largely to mashed potatoes, bread and a tiny bit of meat.

Cornbread-Saussage Stuffing (click for recipe)

Diabetes is different in each person. In me, the carb content, no matter the fiber content, causes my blood sugar to skyrocket. So, no pasta, no rice, no potatoes. Bread has to be limited and kept to certain kinds. Sugar actually affects my blood sugar level less than these other foods.

So, how do you translate that kind of limitation into dressing, which was created as a means of finding a new use for stale, old bread? That was the hardest challenge. Friends told me they had had breadless stuffings before, but that didn’t seem right. I thought about what I did like in some dressings: sausage, onions, celery. A great start. I sautéed them up and added apple and just a little cornbread.

Mashed potatoes in my parents’ home is a staple, and my mom made up a large pot, largely for my nephew. But I also did mashed cauliflower, which tastes enough like mashed potatoes to make believers out of my dad, a cauliflower hater. Adding a little bacon helped.

Holiday Cran-Raspberry Sauce (click for recipe)

Bacon was also featured in the sautéed cabbage, made bright with a touch of ground coriander. Asparagus, no longer limited to spring time, was roasted under the broiler at the last-minute.

The menu was easy, but could I get everything done on time? That’s the challenge all of us face on Thanksgiving. I made a time line and faced the drawback I generally face when I’m cooking for others: I couldn’t wait to get started.

The day before, I made the cran-raspberry sauce, the only sugar to be included in the meal and an item I would have to ration wisely, though the flavor and freshness of this dish makes it tremendously appealing. I also had to rinse the turkey in cold water for a long while because it wasn’t thawing quickly enough in a too-cold refrigerator.

The day we got together, I started with the turkey. Rinsing and drying it is always the way to start. Then I borrowed a technique from my colleague, Bonnie Walker, who made her turkey last year as if she were roasting a chicken. That meant cranking the oven up to 450 degrees and roasting the turkey, breast side up, at that high heat until the tips of the wings started to get dark, maybe 30 minutes. The heat was then lowered to 350 degrees where it roasted until finished.

Mashed Cauliflower (click for recipe)

The end result was a turkey with an ultra-crisp skin (perhaps my favorite part) and juicy meat inside. I was roasting a Butterball, so basting was not needed; but the bird did cook more quickly than it would have had it been roasted only at 350 degrees. It was ready about 20 minutes before the rest of the dinner was, which is fine, because you want it to rest before serving.

While the turkey was roasting, I started preparing the cauliflower, followed by the dressing, which went together too quickly. It ended up staying warm in the oven for more than an hour. The cabbage followed, with the asparagus going in the oven after we said our prayers, so it could cook while the rest of the food was served.

The last touch was to strain the pan drippings, rather than stirring in carb-heavy flour for gravy.

Sautéed Cabbage With Bacon (click for recipe)

It was Thanksgiving all right. Too much food to fit on the plate. Seconds and thirds and even fourths. But there was a difference. No one curled up into a ball after dinner or begged for a little down time.

Yes, there was a dessert served later that evening. And, no, it wasn’t diabetic-friendly. It was my sister’s birthday, and Mom made her favorite: coconut-cream pie. But by avoiding all those carbs earlier in the meal, I enjoyed my slice without too much guilt. And that’s something else for which I’m grateful.

Dressing or stuffing, for many, is a way of using old bread or rice. Yet you can keep the dish on your Thanksgiving menu and cut back the carbohydrate count.

Cornbread-Sausage Dressing

1 rib celery, minced
1/2 onion, minced
2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
3 mild Italian sausages, casings removed and broken into small pieces
1/2 apple, chopped
1 or 2 stale or toasted cornbread muffins, to taste
1 tablespoon fennel seed
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
1/2 cup pan drippings from the roasted turkey or chicken stock

Sauté celery and onion in butter or olive oil, about 5 minutes or until soft. Add sausage and cook until done. As sausage is beginning to turn brown, add apple to mix and stir thoroughly. When sausage is done and apple somewhat soft, crumble the cornbread muffin over the top and stir in. Add fennel, salt and pepper and season to taste. Place in an 8-inch square pan and keep warm until ready to serve. Just before serving, pour pan drippings over the top.

Makes 4-6 servings, depending on how much cornbread you use.

From John Griffin