Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Tag: Thanksgiving

  • *NO CANS* Green Bean Casserole

    Ah, green bean casserole…that staple of Thanksgiving dinners and church potlucks for decades.  So easy that even someone who can’t cook can make it, because all you have to do is open a can of green beans, a can of cream of mushroom soup, and a package of French fried onions and it makes itself. …

  • Pumpkin Gingerbread Cookies

    Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin.  It’s not just for pie.  These delicious cookies are rather decadent…chewy, moist, and exploding with pungent ginger flavor.  I recently baked hundreds of these with Michael Chen from MasterChef Season 3 for a third grade class at a local middle school during an assembly about seasonal cooking.  You might think kids would…

  • Transforming Thanksgiving Leftovers

    So it’s the day after Thanksgiving and your fridge is exploding with a mangled turkey carcass, half a pan of stuffing, gobs of gelatinous cranberry sauce…and you’ve got no idea what to do, right? Don’t microwave another paper plate filled with stale leftovers.  Transform the leftovers into something different and better!  Turkey Meat Tamales Coming…

  • A Thanksgiving Message

    Thanksgiving approaches.  Here’s a message to all of you, from the bottom of my heart:

  • Fresh Pumpkin Pie (NO cans!)

    So everyone’s got a recipe for pumpkin pie, and here’s the best one.  (An instructional video for this recipe is located at the bottom.) Of course, the best one involves nothing from a can, which means WORK.  I’ll throw you some shortcuts the deeper we get into the recipe, but if you want to make…

  • Transforming Thanksgiving Leftovers

    So it’s the day after Thanksgiving and your fridge is exploding with a mangled turkey carcass, half a pan of stuffing, gobs of gelatinous cranberry sauce…and you’ve got no idea what to do, right? Don’t microwave another paper plate filled with stale leftovers. Transform the leftovers into something different and better! TURKEY MEAT Tamales  Coming…

  • Ben’s Life-Altering Cajun Turkey

    The Cajun-spiced deep-fried turkey has become very popular since Emeril introduced it on Food Network several years ago.  Most of us don’t have a fryer large enough for a turkey, nor do we want to spend $50 on a fryer and another $50 on peanut oil, so an alternative is to “brine” the turkey from…

  • Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey (brined)

    For this recipe, you will need three 10-pound bags of ice, 1 gallon of apple cider vinegar, 1-2 boxes of Morton’s Course Kosher Salt (see the recipe below for different types of salt), white sugar, canola oil, aluminum foil, a cooler, a roasting pan, a meat thermometer, and, of course, a turkey.  Do not brine…

  • Meemaw’s Cornbread Dressing

    I know it may be traditional to “stuff” the Thanksgiving turkey, but a food scientist will tell you that it can be dangerous to do this.  Stuffing soaks up uncooked turkey juices, and unless you get the stuffing to the right temperature (165F), you risk a harmful buildup of bacteria.  (And you’re never gonna get…

  • Benny’s Legendary Cranberry Sauce

    Feed this to your family alongside the Thanksgiving turkey and they will never, ever, ever go back to canned cranberry sauce as long as they live.  This stuff is AMAZING.  Make a double batch, because the leftovers are brilliant served warm or cold over ice cream, as a filling for crepes or on top of…