Statesiders, are you sick of Thanksgiving leftovers yet? I think I’m just about done with eating cold turkey. Although I have to say that the turkey/stuffing/mashed potato omelette (don’t knock it til you try it) that my awesome husband brought me in bed the other morning was pretty stellar.

Even so, time for a change and here it is. This dish is a welcome relief from all things holiday-related. It’s a great Autumn/Winter salad: warm and hearty, yet fresh and tangy. Love.

I love roasting beets but I’ve never boiled them before. I’ve also never used the beet greens before. Turns out, sauteed with red onion and garlic, they are nigh on perfect.

Add in some al dente orzo, crunchy, toasted pine nuts, and creamy, tangy feta and you have yourself a whole lotta loving in a bowl. Don’t you love how the orzo is all orangey-red from cooking in the beet water? I do. But then, those are the kinds of things that excite me. And yes, I need to get out more.

Warm Orzo Salad with Beets and Greens

from The Parsley Thief

Ingredients

• 3/4 lb beets with greens
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 ounces orzo pasta
• 3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Directions

1. Heat the pine nuts in a dry skillet, over medium heat, until they begin to brown. Watch them carefully, as they will burn in a flash. Remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl. Set aside.
2. Peel the beets and slice them into bite-sized pieces. Remove the stems from the beet greens and slice the leaves into strips. Wash the greens thoroughly to remove any grit.
3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the sliced red onion and garlic. Cook until the onions are tender and golden brown, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium low and add the beet greens. Cover and cook, tossing occasionally, until the greens are wilted, about 5 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cook the beets in a pot of salted water, until just tender, about 10-12 minutes. Remove the beets from the pot using a slotted spoon and set aside. Return the water to a boil and add the pasta. Cook, according to the package instructions, until al dente and drain.
5. Add the orzo to a bowl, along with the beets, pine nuts, beet greens and crumbled feta. Toss, season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Serves 6, as a side dish

Phew! Thanksgiving is over. How was your day? I know for many people, there’s a whole weekend of celebrating to be had but for me it was just one, wonderful day. Now I have three full days to bake and play to my heart’s content. If you’re ready for something non-Thanksgivingy then read on, friends.

Bangers and mash was a big favourite of mine growing up. We’d have it pretty regularly on school nights, usually with some really stellar thick and juicy sausages, served with mash, peas and gravy. God, it’s good. I would always mix up the mash, gravy and peas into one big, unidentifiable gloop that I was certain (and still am) took the deliciousness to a whole new level.

This recipe is English through and through. I mean, just look at it. It’s screaming at you to call it ugly and bland and I’m sure it’s evoking images of Oliver Twist saying, “Please, sir, I want some more”.

Well, beyond looks, this is just an awesome, very British, big pot of love. A perfectly Autumnal slow-cooking dish that is just a hair’s breadth away from classic bangers and mash. Except it’s so much more than “just bangers and mash” since the beery gravy is allowed to bake with the sausages for almost an entire glorious, flavour-enhancing hour.

Thank you, Nigel Slater, for coming up with so many wonderfully British recipes that give me new inspiration every dang week.

Go for plump and herby sausages if you can find them. Trader Joes does some pretty good ones and if you have access to a local butcher, all the better. If you can’t find proper English sausages, which is more than likely Stateside then do as I did and settle for 4 pork sausages. I chose Ukrainian. They are so much bigger than normal English sausages so you really only need four in the context of this recipe.

For the beer, go for something really dark. A brown ale would be grand or an oatmeal stout, like I tried. They are more than abundant this time of year. We love putting dark brown beers in food dishes, us English. It really is a stroke of genius if you ask me since this gravy almost blew my mind. Next on my list: steak and ale pie.

Slow-Baked Sausages
from Nigel Slater

Ingredients

• 8 plump pork butcher’s sausages
• Oil
• 2 large onions, sliced into thin rounds
• a large knob of butter
• 2 lightly heaped tbsp flour
• a heaped tsp of soft brown sugar
• 1 3/4 cups stock (here’s how to make your own)
• about 3/4 cup dark beer
• to serve: mashed potatoes and peas

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 320F. Fry the sausages using a little oil in a non-stick pan over a moderate heat till lightly coloured on all sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.
2. Melt the butter in a pan over a moderate heat, add the onions and let them colour lightly. Stir in the flour. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes, stirring from time to time, then add the sugar, stock and beer and bring to the boil. Let the mixture boil for a minute or so, then cover with a lid.
3. Bake for 50 minutes, then serve with mashed potato.

Serves 4

As a Brit, I didn’t grow up celebrating Thanksgiving but it’s become one of my favourite holidays.

I love getting to share that time with my American family. I’m building traditions and favourite ways to celebrate here that I hope to continue on when Dan and I have our own little family. It’s all so new and fresh and different to me.

I love that Thanksgiving isn’t a gift-giving holiday and holds none of the stress of spending money and wondering what to buy that Christmas does. The biggest question on our minds is what kind of stuffing to do and how many pies we’ll make. Those are dilemmas I have no problem pondering, believe me.

My first Thanksgiving spent in the U.S. was six years ago (I can hardly believe it’s been that long!) when I first moved to Austin, TX for a year of study. Rather than doing what all the other study abroaders were and spending the day with an American family, my friend Megan and I took a spontaneous trip to New York City.

It was the first time either of us had ever been to New York and it was beyond magical. We happened to have been invited by a British band we’d met at a gig in Austin and spent several completely ridiculous days being total groupies and getting taken out on the town. That was seriously some of the most fun I’ve ever had.

Once we said farewell to the band, we had Thanksgiving to look forward to in a big, unfamiliar city. We went to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, loving every second of the crowds, cheesiness and excitement.

Later, completely burnt out by those same crowds and majorly irritable, we opted to spend the afternoon watching the dreamy Gael Garcia Bernal in The Motorcycle Diaries at the cinema and our spirits were completely lifted. That film holds a special place in both our hearts. In fact, Megan gave me a copy of it on the same birthday that she baked me a carrot cake. Honestly, what a woman.

As for Thanksgiving dinner? We went to a Turkish restaurant near our hostel (and lamely joked that in a way we were “celebrating with turkey”) and talked about our hopes and dreams for life. I wouldn’t have had it any other way and I still think fondly of how that Thanksgiving has instilled in me a desire to be reflective on this holiday; to think about my hopes and dreams, as they were six years ago and as they are now.

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving!