Remember how I promised I was going to post a few more test recipes for Thanksgiving prior to the actual holiday? Yea, that didn’t happen.
This is mostly because whenever I thought about the daunting task I had before me of contributing six to seven dishes for TEN person Thanksgiving meal (that had to be made and prepped in Washington DC but transported to the Eastern Shore of Maryland), I usually wound up in some dark corner shaking and crying.
So here we are… post-Thanksgiving. I fail.
Anyway, this was my first big Thanksgiving. In my family, I’m an only child with no aunts, uncles, or first cousins. Thanksgiving was always a small affair. I was really excited about this year because of this newfound large-familyness. Regardless, I was still terrified.
In total, I spent about nine hours cooking and prepping, split between the night before Thanksgiving (until about 3am) and the morning of Thanksgiving. I must point out, though, that can’t I take all the credit: I had a great sous chef.
Sadly the adventure was not free from catastrophe: for example, there was a point where I ended up with a face full of sweet potato and its subsequent mash splattered all over part of the kitchen due in part to a “minor food processing malfunction/miscalculation”. The walls. The floor. Portions of the ceiling. Horatio’s face. Clover’s face.
No one was safe from this disaster. It was the Thanksgiving equivalent of a slasher flick.
Patrick had already gone to bed, so I sat there, covered in yam guts, on the verge of a breakdown.
In the end, the sweat, endless dirty dishes, and tears were all worth it. Sweet breads, savory side dishes, two (admittedly store-bought) pies, four bottles of wine, and our dogs were all packed up in the car successfully on Thanksgiving Day.
I have to be honest and say I broke the golden rule of cooking on holidays: “Try out your new recipes before the big day! Don’t make something for the first time for Thanksgiving!”
I didn’t do that.
Instead I treated my future in-laws like culinary guinea pigs. I did play it safe by making some things I had made successfully in the past, such as my Zucchini Bread and my Cranberry Orange Bread with Walnuts, but there were some pretty big side dishes that I had never made before.
I got lucky! Everything turned out well, and there were even a couple of new standouts, including the recipe I am about to share with you. They were so good that, as soon as they were out of the oven, I had to keep swatting at Patrick to keep his grubby little mitts off of them. Inevitably, he was successful, but that was okay as he proclaimed these little gems as one of the best things he’s ever tasted.
Small transgressions such as food thievery are easily forgiven when there are compliments involved. I’m a floozy, when it comes to my ego.
Blue Cheese & Almond Stuffed Dates Wrapped in Bacon
Ingredients:
36 pitted dates
18 slices of bacon, cut in half vertically
7 ounces crumbled blue cheese (this amount varies on how stuffed you want your dates)
1/4 cup light brown sugar
Slivered almonds (you’ll need about three per date)
Toothpicks
Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. Cut your dates in half and remove the pits. (I prefer to cut my dates almost all the way around, but not entirely, so the dates open up like a book.)
3. Stuff with three slivered almonds and a heaping amount of blue cheese. Close the dates back up, and make sure your contents are enclosed almost entirely within the date. If you see a peek of cheese here and there, it’s not the end of the world.
4. Sprinkle each piece of bacon with a pinch of brown sugar. Wrap each closed and stuffed date in piece of bacon (with the brown sugar side against the date), and secure it with one toothpick.
NOTE: The bacon, when cooked, will produce quite a bit of grease. Because of this, if this recipe is baked only on a baking sheet, your dates will be sitting in a big grease puddle by the time you pull them out of the oven. To avoid this, you could do what I did: cheat! You could cook your dates on an oven safe rack placed on a baking sheet to catch the grease. Okay, you’re ready for step five!
5. Bake for 30 minutes, or until bacon is crisp.
6. Let stand for at least 5 to 10 minutes before serving.
