Collard Greens with Lima Beans & Turkey

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. Some of you are out shopping today or trying to catch up on your NaNoWriMo. I’m not taking part in NaNoWriMo this year, since I'm hosting out of town company.

Here is one of my family’s favorite dishes. It’s another old-fashioned tummy-warming meal just in time to use up some of your leftover turkey (you can substitute smoked turkey or turkey polish sausage slices). The crushed red pepper is a southern necessity, but if you can’t stomach spicy dishes, you can leave it out. Serve with hot buttered corn bread. 

1 bag frozen baby lima beans

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups vertically sliced red onion

3 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

1 cup diced turkey or smoked turkey breast

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)

3 garlic gloves, minced

1 bay leaf

8 cups sliced collard greens

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Heat oil in a dutch oven or large pan over medium-low heat. Add onion; saute 10 minutes. Add beans, broth, and the next 5 ingredients (turkey through bay leaf). Bring to a boil and let simmer for about an hour*, Stir in collards, vinegar, and tomatoes. Cover and simmer an additional hour. Stir in salt and pepper. Discard bay leaf. 

*At this point, you can choose to bake it in the oven at 375º. After an hour, add the other ingredients and return to the oven for an additional hour. 

This recipe is easily adaptable to a Crockpot. Place sauteed onions in your Crockpot, top with beans, broth and the next five ingredients. Then add the chopped collards and pour the vinegar and tomatoes on top. Cover and cook all day. Stir before serving.

Based on a recipe from Cooking Light, March 2000 and reprinted on myrecipes.com.

Don't forget this month's contest. Submit a story using one of our prompts or submit a favorite holiday recipe. You can copy and paste as a comment or use our contact page to enter. 

Mamaw Avon’s Pink Stuff

photo by Anna

Southerners love their “get-togethers,” especially if the holidays and food are involved. My husband Danny’s family is no exception. Though his mother, Mamaw Avon, now lives in her heavenly residence, her bright smile and recipes live on. Thanksgiving meant turkey, Christmas meant ham, and for both holidays, she made cherry fluff, or as we called it, pink stuff.

On Thanksgiving Day, we’d wake early to the smell of the turkey which had baked all night. “Dressing,” which is a southern-type of cornbread stuffing, was tasted and re-tasted to get the spices just right. Vegetables were cooked and the house filled quickly with family and friends bearing casseroles and cake plates brimming with delectable dishes. The pink stuff was mixed together and chilled before the start of our late afternoon celebration.

The large crowd would be quieted before we’d give thanks to God for His abundant goodness, then to the feasting. Most of us ate our pink stuff with the meal, but a few would save a bowlful for desert later. The left-overs brought us all together for several days thereafter and the fun would begin all over again.

Do your holidays have enjoyable food traditions or memories?

 

Pink Stuff

1 can cherry pie filling

1 small can crushed pineapple, drained

12 oz. Cool Whip

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 cup miniature marshmallows

½ cup pecans, finely chopped

 

Mix all ingredients in large bowl; mix well. Pour in decorative bowl and refrigerate for one hour.

 

Today’s writing prompt: Sandra emptied the pecans she’d chopped into the faded hand-painted bowl as a tear slipped down her cheek. Her mother’s bowl…

November Gift Card Give Away

It's time for our monthly give away! I can hear the groans now. Not another short story contest? I can't. I'm writing for NaNoWrMo and am 12,385 words behind! And Thanksgiving is a week away. Haven't you looked at the calendar?

Well, I'm with you! I'm a little behind with NaNo and haven't shopped for groceries either. So this month's $10 Amazon gift card contest will be different. Yes, you can still enter a 500 word or less story using a November prompt if you'd like. We love to read your stories!

However, keeping with the theme of food and recipes, we are giving you the opportunity to comment with a favorite holiday dish. That's right. Copy and paste your favorite recipe right on the comment part of the blog or use the contact page and you are automatically entered in this month's contest.

Make sure you've entered by midnight on November 25th and we'll announce the winner on December 1st. A story or a recipe. It's your choice!

Fall Holidays - Thanksgiving and Perseverance

Thanksgiving Day is the most obvious choice among the Fall Holidays, but I intend to take a slightly different track. Since Thanksgiving is high on my list of favorite holidays, I would like to give homage to Sarah Josepha Hale, who ardently campaigned for its creation. She would not back down, but pursued her dream for seventeen years. Hey, that’s perseverance! Of course she was a writer. Writers understand rejection and perseverance. 

Hale wrote letters to five American presidents, asking that they declare Thanksgiving Day a national holiday. Up to this time, it was only celebrated in New England and those states chose their own day to celebrate. Abraham Lincoln was persuaded by her letter to support legislation for the holiday in 1863. Thanksgiving became the third national holiday, joining George Washington’s birthday and Independence Day. 

For more information on this fascinating individual, you can click the link (her name above) or under research, below. I would encourage you to read about her life and perhaps you can include her, or references to her, in your historical writing.

My son's first turkey

Of course I can’t leave the discussion of Thanksgiving without also giving homage to the humble turkey. If Benjamin Franklin had had his way, the turkey would have been declared our national bird, instead of the eagle. 

Franklin wrote, “For a truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America . . . a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farmyard with a red coat on.”

Ha! So as you slice into your golden-brown turkey on Thanksgiving Day, be sure to thank him (the turkey) for his ongoing contribution to your celebration.

Research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle9.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Josepha_Hale

http://www.uvm.edu/~hag/godey/hale.html

List of Fall Holidays:

September

Autumnal Equinox - Sept 22 @ 10:49 a.m. Northern Hemisphere

Native American Day 28

Sukkot (begins at sundown) 30

Yom Kippur 30

October

Columbus Day 8

Thanksgiving Day 8 (C)

Boss’s Day 16

Sweetest Day 20

United Nations Day 24

Halloween 31

November

All Saint’s Day 1

All Soul’s Day 2

Veteran’s Day 11

Sadie Hawkins Day 13

Thanksgiving Day 22

December

Pearl Harbor Day 7

Chanukah 8 (lasts 8 days) 

Poinsettia Day 12

This week’s prompt: 

When Ardmore grabbed the knife to begin carving the Thanksgiving turkey, Charlotte’s face paled. . .